Hinweis

L for Liberty wird wieder etwas belebter... JayJay hat ein Plädoyer für das Ausländerwahlrecht geschrieben, CK eine Gegenargumentation dazu und ich einen Gegenstandpunkt zur ganzen Debatte.

Viel Spass bei der Lektüre!

299 Jahre Denis Diderot

AUTORITÉ POLITIQUE. Aucun homme n’a reçu de la nature le droit de commander aux autres. La liberté est un présent du ciel, et chaque individu de la même espèce a le droit d’en jouir aussitôt qu’il jouit de la raison. Si la nature a établi quelque autorité, c’est la puissance paternelle : mais la puissan­ce paternelle a ses bornes, et dans l’état de nature elle finirait aussitôt que les enfants seraient en état de se conduire. Toute autre autorité vient d’une autre origine que de la nature. Qu’on examine bien, et on la fera toujours remonter à l’une de ces deux sources : ou la force et la violence de celui qui s’en est em­paré, ou le consentement de ceux qui s’y sont soumis par un contrat fait ou supposé entre eux et celui à qui ils ont déféré l’autorité.

La puissance qui s’acquiert par la violence n’est qu’une usurpation, et ne dure qu’autant que la force de celui qui commande l’emporte sur celle de ceux qui obéissent ; en sorte que si ces derniers deviennent à leur tour les plus forts et qu’ils secouent le joug, ils le font avec autant de droit et de justice que l’autre qui le leur avait imposé. La même loi qui a fait l’autorité, la défait alors : c’est la loi du plus fort.

Quelquefois l’autorité qui s’établit par la violence change de nature c’est lorsqu’elle continue et se maintient du consentement exprès de ceux qu’on a soumis ; mais elle rentre par là dans la seconde espèce dont je vais parler ; et celui qui se l’était arrogée, devenant alors prince, cesse d’être tyran.

La puissance qui vient du consentement des peuples suppose nécessaire­ment des conditions qui en rendent l’usage légitime, utile à la société, avanta­geux à la république, et qui la fixent et la restreignent entre des limites : car l’homme ne doit ni ne peut se donner entièrement et sans réserve à un autre homme, parce qu’il a un maître supérieur au-dessus de tout, à qui seul il appartient tout entier. C’est Dieu, dont le pouvoir est toujours immédiat sur la créature, maître aussi jaloux qu’absolu, qui ne perd jamais de ses droits, et ne les communique point. Il permet pour le bien commun et pour le maintien de la société, que les hommes établissent entre eux un ordre de subordination, qu’ils obéissent à l’un d’eux : mais il veut que ce soit par raison et avec mesu­re, et non pas aveuglément et sans réserve, afin que la créature ne s’arroge pas les droits du Créateur. Toute autre soumission est le véritable crime d’idolâ­trie. Fléchir le genou devant un homme ou devant une image n’est qu’une cérémonie extérieure, dont le vrai Dieu qui demande le cœur et l’esprit ne se soucie guère, et qu’il abandonne à l’institution des hommes pour en faire, comme il leur conviendra, des marques d’un culte civil et politique, ou d’un culte de religion. Ainsi ce ne sont point ces cérémonies en elles-mêmes, mais l’esprit de leur établissement qui en rend la pratique innocente ou criminelle.

(...)

 

(aus der Encyclopédie, 1751-1765)

245 Jahre Wilhelm von Humboldt

Zum Geburtstag des (halben) Namensgebers der ostberliner Universität, des älteren der beiden Humboldt-Brüder heute ein Auszug aus einem Klassiker des Liberalismus, der bisweilen (größtenteils wohl doch zu Unrecht) auch als protoanarchistisch charakterisiert wird und überraschenderweise einen bleibenden Einfluss auf Noam Chomsky ausübte...

die Ideen zu einem Versuch die Gränzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen aus dem Revolutionsjahr 1792. Hier ein Auszug aus Punkt 3 aus dem III. Abschnitt:

"Alles, womit sich der Mensch beschäftigt, wenn es gleich nur bestimmt ist, physische Bedürfnisse mittelbar oder unmittelbar zu befriedigen oder überhaupt äußere Zwecke zu erreichen, ist auf das genaueste mit innren Empfindungen verknüpft. Manchmal ist auch neben dem äußeren Endzweck noch ein innerer, und manchmal ist sogar dieser der eigentlich beabsichtete, jener nur notwendig oder zufällig damit verbunden. Je mehr Einheit der Mensch besitzt, desto freier entspringt das äußere Geschäft, das er wählt, aus seinem innren Sein, und desto häufiger und fester knüpft sich dieses an jenes da an, wo dasselbe nicht frei gewählt wurde. Daher ist der interessante Mensch in allen Lagen und allen Geschäften interessant; daher blüht er zu einer entzückenden Schönheit auf in einer Lebensweise, die mit seinem Charakter übereinstimmt.

So ließen sich vielleicht aus allen Bauern und Handwerkern Künstler bilden, d. h. Menschen, die ihr Gewerbe um ihres Gewerbes willen liebten, durch eigengelenkte Kraft und eigne Erfindsamkeit verbesserten und dadurch ihre intellektuellen Kräfte kultivierten, ihren Charakter vereitelten, ihre Genüsse erhöhten. So würde die Menschheit durch eben die Dinge geadelt, die jetzt, wie schön sie auch an sich sind, so oft dazu dienen, sie zu entehren. Je mehr der Mensch in Ideen und Empfindungen zu leben gewohnt ist, je stärker und feiner seine intellektuelle und moralische Kraft ist, desto mehr sucht er allein solche äußre Lagen zu wählen, welche zugleich dem innren Menschen mehr Stoff geben, oder denjenigen, in welche ihn das Schicksal wirft, wenigstens solche Seiten abzugewinnen. Der Gewinn, welchen der Mensch an Größe und Schönheit einerntet, wenn er unaufhörlich dahin strebt, daß sein inneres Dasein immer den ersten Platz behaupte, daß es immer der erste Quell und das letzte Ziel alles Wirkens und alles Körperliche und Äußere nur Hülle und Werkzeug desselben sei, ist unabsehlich.

Wie sehr zeichnet sich nicht, um ein Beispiel zu wählen, in der Geschichte der Charakter aus, welchen der ungestörte Landbau in einem Volke bildet. Die Arbeit, welche es dem Boden widmet, und die Ernte, womit derselbe es wieder belohnt, fesseln es süß an seinen Acker und seinen Herd; Teilnahme der segenvollen Mühe und gemeinschaftlicher Genuß des Gewonnenen schlingen ein liebevolles Band um jede Familie, von dem selbst der mitarbeitende Stier nicht ganz ausgeschlossen wird. Die Frucht, die gesäet und geerntet werden muß, aber alljährlich wiederkehrt und nur selten die Hoffnung täuscht, macht geduldig, vertrauend und sparsam; das unmittelbare Empfangen aus der Hand der Natur, das immer sich aufdrängende Gefühl, daß, wenn gleich die Hand des Menschen den Samen ausstreuen muß, doch nicht sie es ist, von welcher Wachstum und Gedeihen kommt; die ewige Abhängigkeit von günstiger und ungünstiger Witterung flößt den Gemütern bald schauderhafte, bald frohe Ahndungen höherer Wesen, wechselweis Furcht und Hoffnung ein und führt zu Gebet und Dank; das lebendige Bild der einfachsten Erhabenheit, der ungestörtesten Ordnung und der mildesten Güte bildet die Seelen einfach, groß, sanft und der Sitte und dem Gesetz froh unterworfen. Immer gewohnt hervorzubringen, nie zu zerstören, ist der Ackerbauer friedlich und von Beleidigung und Rache fern, aber er füllt von dem Gefühl der Ungerechtigkeit eines ungereizten Angriffs und gegen jeden Störer seines Friedens mit unerschrockenem Mut beseelt.

Allein, freilich ist Freiheit die notwendige Bedingung, ohne welche selbst das seelenvollste Geschäft keine heilsamen Wirkungen dieser Art hervorzubringen vermag. Was nicht von dem Menschen selbst gewählt, worin er auch nur eingeschränkt und geleitet wird, das geht nicht in sein Wesen über, das bleibt ihm ewig fremd, das verrichtet er nicht eigentlich mit menschlicher Kraft, sondern mit mechanischer Fertigkeit. Die Alten, vorzüglich die Griechen, hielten jede Beschäftigung, welche zunächst die körperliche Kraft angeht oder Erwerbung äußerer Güter, nicht innere Bildung, zur Absicht hat, für schädlich und entehrend. Ihre menschenfreundlichsten Philosophen billigten daher die Sklaverei, gleichsam um durch ein ungerechtes und barbarisches Mittel einem Teile der Menschheit durch Aufopferung eines andren die höchste Kraft und Schönheit zu sichern. Allein den Irrtum, welcher diesem ganzen Räsonnement zum Grunde liegt, zeigen Vernunft und Erfahrung leicht. Jede Beschäftigung vermag den Menschen zu adeln, ihm eine bestimmte, seiner würdige Gestalt zu geben. Nur auf die Art, wie sie betrieben wird, kommt es an; und hier läßt sich wohl als allgemeine Regel annehmen, daß sie heilsame Wirkungen äußert, solange sie selbst und die darauf verwandte Energie vorzüglich die Seele füllt, minder wohltätiger oft nachteilige hingegen, wenn man mehr auf das Resultat sieht, zu dem sie führt, und sie selbst nur als Mittel betrachtet. Denn alles, was in sich selbst reizend ist, erweckt Achtung und Liebe, was nur als Mittel Nutzen verspricht, bloß Interesse; und nun wird der Mensch durch Achtung und Liebe ebensosehr geadelt, als er durch Interesse in Gefahr ist, entehrt zu werden."

Frankreich wählt weiss

Über 2,14 Millionen Franzosen haben vergangenen Sonntag weiss oder ungültig gestimmt, also bewusst gegen beide Kandidaten. Handelte es sich dabei um Wähler von Elisée Reclus?

(via Espace contre ciment)

Oder doch von Frédéric Bastiat?

(via Gauche libérale)

Vermutlich handelte es sich letztendlich wohl mehrheitlich um Wähler von Marine Le Pen, die ja auch weltanschaulich eher zum Weissen tendieren...

192 Jahre Herbert Spencer

Da Herbert Spencer erstaunlicherweise neben Franz Kafka das am meisten gefragteste Geburtstagskind auf diesen Seiten ist, habe ich auch dieses Jahr wieder einen Text des englischen Proto-Soziologen ausgesucht, diesmal einen seiner bekanntesten:

The right to ignore the State

§ 1. As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state - to relinquish its protection and to refuse paying toward its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others, for his position is a passive one, and while passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally self-evident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man's property against his will is an infringement of his rights. Government being simply an agent employed in common by a number of individuals to secure to them certain advantages, the very nature of the connection implies that it is for each to say whether he will employ such an agent or not. If anyone of them determines to ignore this mutual-safety confederation, nothing can be said except that he loses all claim to its good offices and exposes himself to the danger of maltreatment - a thing he is quite at liberty to do if he likes. He cannot be coerced into political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he can withdraw from it without committing any such breach, and he has therefore a right so to withdraw.

§ 2. "No human laws are of any validity if contrary to the law of nature; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority mediately or immediately from this original." Thus writes Blackstone, to whom let all honor be given for having so far outseen the ideas of his time and, indeed, we may say of our time. A good antidote, this, for those political superstitions which so widely prevail. A good check upon that sentiment of power worship which still misleads us by magnifying the prerogatives of constitutional governments as it once did those of monarchs. Let men learn that a legislature is not "our God upon earth," though, by the authority they ascribe to it and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is at best borrowed.
Nay, indeed, have we not seen that government is essentially immoral? Is it not the offspring of evil, bearing about it all the marks of its parentage? Does it not exist because crime exists? Is it not strong - or, as we say, despotic - when crime is great? Is there not more liberty - that is, less government -- when crime diminishes? And must not government cease when crime ceases, for very lack of objects on which to perform its function? Not only does magisterial power exist because of evil, but it exists by evil. Violence is employed to maintain it, and all violence involves criminality. Soldiers, policemen, and jailers; swords, batons, and fetters are instruments for inflicting pain; and all inflection of pain is in the abstract wrong. The state employs evil weapons to subjugate evil and is alike contaminated by the objects with which it deals and the means by which it works. Morality cannot recognize it, for morality, being simply a statement of the perfect law, can give no countenance to anything growing out of, and living by, breaches of that law. Wherefore, legislative authority can never be ethical - must always be conventional merely.
Hence, there is a certain inconsistency in the attempt to determine the right position, structure, and conduct of a government by appeal to the first principles of rectitude. For as just pointed out, the acts of an institution which is in both nature and origin imperfect cannot be made to square with the perfect law. All that we can do is to ascertain, firstly, in what attitude a legislature must stand to the community to avoid being by its mere existence an embodied wrong; secondly, in what manner it must be constituted so as to exhibit the least incongruity with the moral law; and thirdly, to what sphere its actions must be limited to prevent it from multiplying those breaches of equity it is set up to prevent.
The first condition to be conformed to before a legislature can be established without violating the law of equal freedom is the acknowledgment of the right now under discussion - the right to ignore the state.

§ 3. Upholders of pure despotism may fitly believe state-control to be unlimited and unconditional. They who assert that men are made for governments and not governments for men may consistently hold that no one can remove himself beyond the pale of political organization. But they who maintain that the people are the only legitimate source of power - that legislative authority is not original, but deputed - cannot deny the right to ignore the state without entangling themselves in an absurdity.
For, if legislative authority is deputed, it follows that those from whom it proceeds are the masters of those on whom it is conferred; it follows further that as masters they confer the said authority voluntarily; and this implies that they may give or withhold it as they please. To call that deputed which is wrenched from men, whether they will or not, is nonsense. But what is here true of all collectively is equally true of each separately. As a government can rightly act for the people only when empowered by them, so also can it rightly act for the individual only when empowered by him. If A, B, and C debate whether they shall employ an agent to perform for them a certain service, and if while A and B agree to do so C dissents, C cannot equitably be made a party to the agreement in spite of himself. And this must be equally true of thirty as of three; and if of thirty, why not of three hundred, or three thousand, or three millions?

§ 4. Of the political superstitions lately alluded to, none is so universally diffused as the notion that majorities are omnipotent. Under the impression that the preservation of order will ever require power to be wielded by some party, the moral sense of our time feels that such power cannot rightly be conferred on any but the largest moiety of society. It interprets literally the saying that "the voice of the people is the voice of God," and, transferring to the one the sacredness attached to the other, it concludes that from the will of the people - that is, of the majority - there can be no appeal. Yet is this belief entirely erroneous.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that, struck by some Malthusian panic, a legislature duly representing public opinion were to enact that all children born during the next ten years should be drowned. Does anyone think such an enactment would be warrantable? If not, there is evidently a limit to the power of a majority. Suppose, again, that of two races living together - Celts and Saxons, for example - the most numerous determined to make the others their slaves. Would the authority of the greatest number be in such case valid? If not, there is something to which its authority must be subordinate. Suppose, once more, that all men having incomes under £50 a year were to resolve upon reducing every income above that amount to their own standard, and appropriating the excess for public purposes. Could their resolution be justified? If not, it must be a third time confessed that there is a law to which the popular voice must defer. What, then, is that law, if not the law of pure equity - the law of equal freedom? These restraints, which all would put to the will of the majority, are exactly the restraints set up by that law. We deny the right of a majority to murder, to enslave, or to rob, simply because murder, enslaving, and robbery are violations of that law - violations too gross to be overlooked. But if great violations of it are wrong, so also are smaller ones. If the will of the many cannot supersede the first principle of morality in these cases, neither can it in any. So that, however insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible.
When we have made our constitution purely democratic, thinks to himself the earnest reformer, we shall have brought government into harmony with absolute justice. Such a faith, though perhaps needful for the age, is a very erroneous one. By no process can coercion be made equitable. The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny; the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also, only of a less intense kind. "You shall do as we will, and not as you will," is in either case the declaration; and if the hundred make it to the ninety-nine, instead of the ninety-nine to the hundred, it is only a fraction less immoral. Of two such parties, whichever fulfills this declaration necessarily breaks the law of equal freedom: the only difference being that by the one it is broken in the persons of ninety-nine, while by the other it is broken in the persons of a hundred. And the merit of the democratic form of government consists solely in this, that it trespasses against the smallest number.
The very existence of majorities and minorities is indicative of an immoral state. The man whose character harmonizes with the moral law, we found to be one who can obtain complete happiness without diminishing the happiness of his fellows. But the enactment of public arrangements by vote implies a society consisting of men otherwise constituted -- implies that the desires of some cannot be satisfied without sacrificing the desires of others -- implies in the pursuit of their happiness the majority inflict a certain amount of unhappiness on the minority -- implies, therefore, organic immorality. Thus, from another point of view, we again perceive that even in its most equitable form it is impossible for government to dissociate itself from evil; and further, that unless the right to ignore the state is recognized, its acts must be essentially criminal.

§ 5. That a man is free to abandon the benefits and throw off the burdens of citizenship may indeed be inferred from the admissions of existing authorities and of current opinion. Unprepared as they probably are for so extreme a doctrine as the one here maintained, the radicals of our day yet unwittingly profess their belief in a maxim which obviously embodies this doctrine. Do we not continually hear them quote Blackstone's assertion that "no subject of England can be constrained to pay any aids or taxes even for the defence of the realm or the support of government, but such as are imposed by his own consent, or that of his representative in parliament?" And what does this mean? It means, say they, that every man should have a vote. True, but it means much more. If there is any sense in words it is a distinct enunciation of the right now contended for. In affirming that a man may not be taxed unless he has directly or indirectly given his consent, it affirms that he may refuse to be so taxed; and to refuse to be taxed is to cut all connection with the state. Perhaps it will be said that this consent is not a specific, but a general one, and that the citizen is understood to have assented to everything his representative may do when he voted for him. But suppose he did not vote for him, and on the contrary did all in his power to get elected someone holding opposite views - what then? The reply will probably be that, by taking part in such an election, he tacitly agreed to abide by the decision of the majority. And how if he did not vote at all? Why, then he cannot justly complain of any tax, seeing that he made no protest against its imposition. So, curiously enough, it seems that he gave his consent in whatever way he acted - whether he said yes, whether he said no, or whether he remained neuter! A rather awkward doctrine, this. Here stands an unfortunate citizen who is asked if he will pay money for a certain proffered advantage; and whether he employs the only means of expressing his refusal or does not employ it, we are told that he practically agrees, if only the number of others who agree is greater than the number of those who dissent. And thus we are introduced to the novel principle that A's consent to a thing is not determined by what A says, but by what B may happen to say!
It is for those who quote Blackstone to choose between this absurdity and the doctrine above set forth. Either his maxim implies the right to ignore the state, or it is sheer nonsense.

§ 6. There is a strange heterogeneity in our political faiths. Systems that have had their day and are beginning here and there to let the daylight through are patched with modern notions utterly unlike in quality and color; and men gravely display these systems, wear them, and walk about in them, quite unconscious of their grotesqueness. This transition state of ours, partaking as it does equally of the past and the future, breeds hybrid theories exhibiting the oddest union of bygone despotism and coming freedom. Here are types of the old organization curiously disguised by germs of the new - peculiarities showing adaptation to a preceding state modified by rudiments that prophecy of something to come - making altogether so chaotic a mixture of relationships that there is no saying to what class these births of the age should be referred.
As ideas must of necessity bear the stamp of the time, it is useless to lament the contentment with which these incongruous beliefs are held. Otherwise it would seem unfortunate that men do not pursue to the end the trains of reasoning which have led to these partial modifications. In the present case for example, consistency would force them to admit that, on other points besides the one just noticed, they hold opinions and use arguments in which the right to ignore the state is involved.
For what is the meaning of Dissent? The time was when a man's faith and his mode of worship were as much determinable by law as his secular acts; and, according to provisions extant in our statute book, are so still. Thanks to the growth of a Protestant spirit, however, we have ignored the state in this matter - wholly in theory, and partly in practice. But how have we done so? By assuming an attitude which, if consistently maintained, implies a right to ignore the state entirely. Observe the positions of the two parties. "This is your creed," says the legislator; "you must believe and openly profess what is here set down for you." "I shall not do anything of the kind," answers the nonconformist; "I will go to prison rather." "Your religious ordinances," pursues the legislator, "shall be such as we have prescribed. You shall attend the churches we have endowed and adopt the ceremonies used in them." "Nothing shall induce me to do so," is the reply; "I altogether deny your power to dictate to me in such matters, and mean to resist to the uttermost." "Lastly," adds the legislator, "we shall require you to pay such sums of money toward the support of these religious institutions as we may see fit to ask." "Not a farthing will you have from me," exclaims our sturdy Independent; "even did I believe in the doctrines of your church (which I do not), I should still rebel against your interference; and if you take my property, it shall be by force and under protest."
What now does this proceeding amount to when regarded in the abstract? It amounts to an assertion by the individual of the right to exercise on of his faculties -- the religious sentiment -- without let or hinderance, and with no limit save that set up by the equal claims of others. And what is meant by ignoring the state? Simply an assertion of the right similarly to exercise all the faculties. The one is just an expansion of the other -- rests on the same footing with the other -- must stand or fall with the other. Men do indeed speak of civil and religious liberty as different things: but the distinction is quite arbitrary. They are parts of the same whole and cannot philosophically be separated.
"Yes they can," interposes the objector; "assertion of the one is imperative as being a religious duty. The liberty to worship God in the way that seems to him right is a liberty without which a man cannot fulfill what he believes to be Divine commands, and therefore conscience requires him to maintain it." True enough; but how if the same can be asserted of all other liberty? How if maintenance of this also turns out to be a matter of conscience? Have we not seen that human happiness is the Divine will - that only by exercising our faculties is this happiness obtainable -- and that it is impossible to exercise them without freedom? And if this freedom for the exercise of faculties is a condition without which the Divine will cannot be fulfilled, the preservation of it is, by our objector's own showing, a duty. Or, in other words, it appears not only that the maintenance of liberty of action may be a point of conscience, but that it ought to be one. And thus we are clearly shown that the claims to ignore the state in religious and in secular matters are in essence identical.
The other reason commonly assigned for nonconformity admits of similar treatment. Besides resisting state dictation in the abstract, the dissenter resists it from disapprobation of the doctrines taught. No legislative injunction will make him adopt what he considers an erroneous belief; and, bearing in mind his duty toward his fellow men, he refuses to help through the medium of his purse in disseminating this erroneous belief. The position is perfectly intelligible. But it is one which either commits its adherents to civil nonconformity also, or leaves them in a dilemma. For why do they refuse to be instrumental in spreading error? Because error is adverse to human happiness. And on what ground is any piece of secular legislation disapproved? For the same reason - because thought adverse to human happiness. How, then, can it be shown that the state ought to be resisted in the one case and not in the other? Will anyone deliberately assert that if a government demands money from us to aid in teaching what we think will produce evil we ought to refuse it, but that if the money is for the purpose of doing what we think will produce evil we ought not to refuse it? Yet such is the hopeful proposition which those have to maintain who recognize the right to ignore the state in religious matters but deny it in civil matters.

§ 7. The substance of this chapter once more reminds us of the incongruity between a perfect law and an imperfect state. The impracticability of the principle here laid down varies directly as social morality. In a thoroughly vicious community its admission would be productive of anarchy. In a completely virtuous one its admission will be both innocuous and inevitable. Progress toward a condition of social health - a condition, that is, in which the remedial measures of legislation will no longer be needed - is progress toward a condition in which those remedial measures will be cast aside and the authority prescribing them disregarded. The two changes are of necessity co-ordinate. That moral sense whose supremacy will make society harmonious and government unnecessary is the same moral sense which will then make each man assert his freedom even to the extent of ignoring the state -- is the same moral sense which, by deterring the majority from coercing the minority, will eventually render government impossible. And as what are merely different manifestations of the same sentiment must bear a constant ratio to each other, the tendency to repudiate governments will increase only at the same rate that governments become needless.
Let not any be alarmed, therefore, at the promulgation of the foregoing doctrine. There are many changes yet to be passed through before it can begin to exercise much influence. Probably a long time will elapse before the right to ignore the state will be generally admitted, even in theory. It will be still longer before it receives legislative recognition. And even then there will be plenty of checks upon the premature exercise of it. A sharp experience will sufficiently instruct those who may too soon abandon legal protection. While, in the majority of men, there is such a love of tried arrangements and so great a dread of experiments that they will probably not act upon this right until long after it is safe to do so.

(Kapitel 19 aus der ersten Auflage von Social Statics: or, The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed, London, 1851).

Realismus

"The OWS brigade along with the more mainstream left believe that greater regulation, more political control of markets and higher taxes on the wealthy will rebalance the system, breaking up the existing power structure. They fail miserably however to explain why the wealthy won’t use their current power to find ways of manipulating this increased intervention via continuous rent seeking. Adding yet more interventions and taxes which discourage the formation of new fortunes will simply provide additional opportunities for the current elite to avoid the ‘creative destruction’ characteristic of un-fettered market competition. The Classical Liberal/ Libertarian solution, by contrast, is to dis-empower the interventionist apparatus that enables the wealthy to shelter behind bail-outs and protective barriers of various sorts. Yet, Libertarians also fail to explain why those who benefit from the status quo would give up their privileges in order to return to a genuinely free market model."

Mehr hier: http://pileusblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/two-views-on-structured-inequality/

205 Jahre John Stuart Mill

Vor kurzem zitierte ich an dieser Stelle Rudolf Rocker mit der Aussage, Anarchismus sei die "Synthese von Liberalismus und Sozialismus". Da liegt es eigentlich nahe, sich auch mit dem sogenannten "ersten Sozialliberalen" zu beschäftigen, dem Utilitaristen, Vorkämpfer für Frauenrechte und Sympathisant von Arbeiterkooperativen John Stuart Mill. Selbst Bakunin hielt Mill in Ehren, etwa wenn er schreibt, Mill sei "l'un des plus estimables et des plus sincères écrivains d'Angleterre, philosophe, politique, économiste frisant le socialisme, mais ne voulant jamais y entrer" (Œuvres complètes, Band 1, Ausgabe Champ Libre, 1973, S.172). Hingegen befand Ludwig von Mises Mill sei der "Urheber der gedankenlosen Vermengung liberaler und sozialistischer Ideen"; heutige Radikalliberale/Libertäre sehen in Mill einen frühen Sozialdemokraten und Verfechter einer "paternalistisch-konservative[n] Idee des Wohlfahrtsstaats à la Bismarck" (siehe hier).

Dagegen kann man allerdings einwenden, dass Mills Modell von Arbeiterkooperativen innerhalb eines Systems einer (weitestgehend) freien Marktwirtschaft, wie 1848 in den Principles of political economy dargelegt, eher an Proudhon denn an Lassalle (der solche vom Staat finanziert sehen wollte) oder gar an die Bismarckschen Sozialreformen der 1880er - die ja gegen die Arbeiterbewegung gerichtet waren - erinnert. Vor zwei Jahren gab es in diesem Forum vor zwei Jahren denn auch eine Debatte ob Mill als Vorläufer der "libertarian left" einzuordnen sei. Allerdings sollte man in diesem Kontext beachten, dass Mill - der wesentlich vom Positivistenpapst Auguste Comte geprägt war, das sollte man nicht vergessen - kaum einen anderen Denker derart verabscheute als ausgerechnet Proudhon, und den utopisch-konstruktivistischen Entwürfen der Fourieristen deutlich mehr Sympathien entgegen brachte.

Zur Dokumentierung habe ich aus diesem Grund drei Stellen von Mill über (bzw. gegen) Proudhon ausgesucht; nicht zuletzt auch deswegen, weil sie unterhaltsam sind.

1. Aus einem Brief an Harriet Taylor, ca. 31. März 1849, enthalten in Band XIV der Collected works:

"(...) progress of the right kind seems to me quite safe now that Socialism has become inextinguishable. I heartily wish Proudhon dead however - there are few men whose state of mind, taken as a whole, inspires me with so much aversion, & all his influence seems to me mischievous except as a potent dissolvent which is good so far, but every single thing which he would substitute seems to me the worst possible in practice & mostly in principle. I have been reading another volume of Considérant lately published - he has got into the details of Fourierism, with many large extracts from Fourier himself. It was perhaps necessary to enter into details in order to make the thing look practicable, but many of the details are, & all appear, passablement ridicules. As to their system, & general mode of thought there is a great question at the root of it which must be settled before one can get a step further. Admitting the omnipotence of education, is not the very pivot & turning point of that education a moral sense - a feeling of duty, or conscience, or principle, or whatever name one gives it - a feeling that one ought to do, & to wish for, what is for the greatest good of all concerned. Now Fourier, & all his followers, leave this out entirely, & rely wholly on such an arrangement of social circumstances as without any inculcation of duty or of 'ought', will make every one, by the spontaneous action of the passions, intensely zealous for all the interests of the whole. Nobody is ever to be made to do anything but act just as they like, but it is calculated that they will always, in a phalanstere, like what is best. This of course leads to the freest notions about personal relations of all sorts, but is it, in other respects, a foundation on which people would be able to live & act together. Owen keeps in generals & only says that education can make everybody perfect, but the Fourierists attempt to shew how, & exclude, as it seems to me, one of the most indispensable ingredients."

2. Aus einem Brief an Henry Samuel Chapman, 28. Mai 1849, ebenfalls Band XIV:

"The election [die Präsidentschaftswahl 1848 in Frankreich, die Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte zum Präsidenten kürte] was carried by the vast mass of the peasantry, & it is one of the most striking instances in history of the power of a name—though no doubt dislike of the republic helped the effect, the peasantry being too ignorant to care much about forms of government & being irritated by the temporary increase of taxation which the revolution rendered necessary & terrified by the anti-property doctrines of Proudhon & the Socialists - I may say of Proudhon only, for the Socialists, even the Communists, do not propose to take away any property from any one, any more than Owen does. (...) There will probably be no outbreak like that of June21 (unless to repel some attempt at a coup d’état) for the democrats & even the socialists will now think they have a better chance of gaining their objects by the peaceable influence of discussion on the minds of the electors - but what turn things will take it is hard to say, the French people being divided into two violent parties, the furious friends of 'order' & the Socialists, who have generally very wild & silly notions & little that one can sympathize with except the spirit & feelings which actuate them. The party who attempt to mediate between these two extremes as the Provisional Government strove to do, is weak, & is disliked by both parties, though there are some signs that all sections of republicans intend to pull together now that they are all in opposition. The chance for France & Europe entirely depends now on the respite which has been obtained & on the possibility of the maturing by this middle party, of rational principles on which to construct an order of society which, retaining the institution of private property (but facilitating all possible experiments for dispensing with it by means of association) shall studiously hurl all inequalities out necessarily inherent in that institution. As an example I may mention the grand idea of the Provisional Government, that of making all education, even professional, gratuitous, which as they proposed it, is liable to the grave objection of throwing all education virtually into the hands of the government, but means might I think be found to purge the scheme of this most serious fault. A great source of hope for France lies in the fact that the most powerful & active section of the Socialists are the Fourierists headed by Considérant, who are much the most sensible & enlightened both in the destructive, & in the constructive parts of their system, & are eminently pacific. On the other hand there is the great danger of having a firebrand like Proudhon, the most mischievous man in Europe, & who has nothing whatever of all that I like & respect in the Socialists to whom he in no way belongs."

3. Aus einem Brief an Dr.Emile Honoré Cazelles, 30. Mai 1869, Band XVII:

"D’un autre côté tout en traitant Proudhon avec une juste sévérité vous me semblez lui avoir fait la part trop belle en disant qu’il a rendu de grands services à la course du progrès. Je puis me tromper, mais il m’a toujours semblé que Proudhon a été très nuisible à la cause du progrès. D’abord personne n’a tant fait pour provoquer la réaction de la peur, qui a eu et qui a encore des effets si funestes. Ensuite je ne vois dans ses écrits rien de foncièrement juste et progressif. Ce qu’il y a chez lui de plus puissant c’est sa dialectique subversive, mais c’est une dialectique d’un mauvais aller; une vraie sophistique, car elle s’attaque au bien comme au mal, et au lieu de se contenter de dire ce qui peut se dire avec vérité contre la meilleure cause, elle entasse contre chaque côté de la question pêle-mêle avec les bonnes raisons, tous les sophismes et même les calomnies qu’on a jamais débités de part et d’autre. Cela brouille les esprits et fausse les idées, tandis que la bonne dialectique les éclairait."

Mises als Kassandra

"Die romantische Auflehnung gegen Logik und Wissenschaft beschränkt sich nicht auf das Gebiet des Gesellschaftlichen und der Gesellschaftswissenschaft; sie ist Auflehnung gegen das Ganze unserer Kultur und Zivilisation. Abkehr vom Wissen und von der Technik, Rückkehr zum Glauben und zur Bukolik des Mittelalters fordern sowohl Spann als auch Sombart, und alle Deutsche, die nicht im Lager des Marxismus stehen, stimmen ihnen freudig zu. Die Marxisten aber sind eifrig dabei, ihren einst nüchternen 'wissenschaftlichen' Sozialismus in einen den Massen mehr zusagenden romantischen und sentimentalen Sozialismus umzugestalten.
Der Wissenschaft wird vorgeworfen, daß sie nur zum Verstande spreche, das Gemüt aber leer und unbefriedigt lasse. Sie sei hart und kalt, wo Wärme verlangt wird; sie gebe nur Lehren und Technik, wo Tröstung und Erhebung gesucht werden. Daß es nicht die Aufgabe der Wissenschaft sein kann, religiöse und metaphysische Bedürfnisse zu befriedigen, ist nicht zu bestreiten. Sie darf die Grenzen, die ihr gezogen sind, nicht überschreiten, sie hat sich auf die Ausgestaltung unseres Begriffssystems zu beschränken, um dann mit seiner Hilfe die logische Verarbeitung der Erfahrung in die Hand zu nehmen; sie baut damit die Grundlagen, auf denen die wissenschaftliche Technologie - und dazu gehört auch alle Politik als Kunstlehre des Gesellschaftlichen - ihr System errichtet.
Um Glauben und Seelenfrieden hat sich die Wissenschaft in keiner Weise zu kümmern. Die Versuche, Metaphysik wissenschaftlich zu begründen oder durch monistische Feiern, die dem Gottesdienst nachgebildet werden, eine Art Religionsersatz zu schaffen, haben mit Wissenschaft nichts zu tun. An das Transzendente, an das, was jenseits des Denkens und der Erfahrung für uns unzugänglich ruhen mag, kommt die Wissenschaft in keiner Weise heran; sie kann sich zu Lehren, die allein das Transzendente betreffen, weder ablehnend noch zustimmend äußern.
Ein Konflikt zwischen Glauben und Wissen entsteht erst, wenn Religion und Metaphysik aus ihrer Sphäre heraustreten und der Wissenschaft den Kampf ansagen; sie greifen an, teils aus dem Bedürfnis, Glaubenssätze zu verteidigen, die mit dem Stande der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis nicht vereinbar sind, öfter noch, um sich gegen die Anwendung der Wissenschaft im Leben zu kehren, wenn diese dem von ihnen empfohlenen Verhalten nicht entspricht. Es ist unschwer zu verstehen, warum dabei die subjektivistische Nationalökonomie am stärksten befehdet wird.
Man darf sich nicht darüber täuschen, daß heute nicht nur die Massen, sondern auch die Gebildeten, die, die man die Intellektuellen nennt, in dieser Auseinandersetzung nicht auf der Seite der Wissenschaft zu finden sind. Manchen mag diese Haltung Herzensbedürfnis sein. Sehr viele aber rechtfertigen ihre Stellungnahme damit, daß es im Zug der Zeit liege, daß man sich dem sehnsüchtigen Wunsch der Massen nicht verschließen dürfe, daß der Intellekt sich demütig vor dem Instinkt und der Einfalt des frommen Gemüts beugen müsse. So dankt der Intellektuelle freiwillig ab, verzichtet voll Selbstverleugnung auf seine Führerrolle und wird zum Geführten. Diese Umkehr - nicht etwa der Wissenschaft, sondern derer, die sich als die Träger der Geisteskultur ansehen - war weitaus das wichtigste geschichtliche Ereignis der letzten Jahrzehnte. Ihr Ergebnis ist eine Politik, deren Früchte wir mit Entsetzen reifen sehen.
Wissenschaftliches Denken hat zu allen Zeiten vereinsamt. Doch nie war es um eine Wissenschaft herum einsamer als um die moderne Nationalökonomie. Das Schicksal der Menschheit - Fortschreiten auf dem Wege, den die Gesittung des Abendlandes seit Jahrtausenden geht, oder jäher Absturz in ein wüstes Chaos, aus dem es keinen Ausweg gibt, aus dem kein neues Leben je erstehen wird - hängt davon ab, ob es dabei bleiben wird."

Ludwig Mises, "Die psychologischen Wurzeln des Widerstandes gegen die nationalökonomische Theorie", erschienen im sehr heterodoxen Tagungsband Probleme der Wertlehre, Erster Teil, München und Leipzig, 1931 (Reprint Vaduz 1994), S.293-295; zugleich Band 183/1 der Schriften des Vereins für Sozialpolitik.

141 Jahre Gustav Landauer

Auch Gustav Landauer kommt hier nicht zum ersten Mal vor. Diesmal habe ich einen vergleichsweise frühen Text ausgewählt, der am 26. Juni 1893 in der Zeitung Der Sozialist erschien:

Manchesterfreiheit - Staatshilfe - Anarchie. Politische Unfreiheit - politische Mitarbeit -Negation des Staats

Mit diesen beiden untereinanderstehenden Reihen möchte ich andeuten, daß der politische und der wirtschaftliche Kampf des Proletariats eine Entwicklung der gleichen Richtung genommen hat. Von der Scheinfreiheit über die Unfreiheit zur wahren Freiheit - so etwa könnte man diese Entwicklung ausdrücken.

Die Manchesterfreiheit, die "Freiheit" der Bourgeoisie, ist ein seltsames Ding. Handel und Wandel, das private Leben und das Verkehrsleben, sollen frei sein, d. h. unbehindert von staatlichen Einschränkungen; der Staat, der nach dieser Lehre die Aufgabe hat, für "Ruhe und Ordnung" zu sorgen, aber sonst für nichts, soll sich in die Produktion und in den Vertrieb der Waren nicht mischen. Was ergab sich daraus? Die Lebensmittel wurden bei vollständigem Freihandel durch keinerlei Zölle belastet und das war das volkstümliche und bestechende an dieser Lehre. Aber noch mehr. Der Staat, gegen den sich die Männer von Manchester wandten, war nicht ihre eigene Organisation, sondern war zum mindesten sehr stark durchsetzt von feudalen und absolutistischen Gewalten. Die bürgerliche Theorie bedeutete also eine Schwächung des despotischen Regimentes, eine Schwächung des Staates überhaupt.

Nun aber die ungeheure Schattenseite. Der Staat mischt sich nicht ein in Handel und Wandel (in jener Blütezeit der Bourgeoisie gab es auch keine Wuchergesetze), wohl aber sorgt er für "Ruhe und Ordnung". Was bedeutet das? Nichts anderes, als daß die Bürgerlichkeit in der Lage ist, ihre wirtschaftliche Macht schrankenlos auszugestalten und die Ausbeutung in einer durch nichts behinderten Schamlosigkeit zu betreiben. "Wie", könnte da ein freier Mann von heute oder morgen einwenden, "wenn nach dieser Lehre der Staat sich in nichts einzumischen hat, warum lassen sich die Geknechteten und Gequälten die Ausbeutung gefallen? Warum schütteln sie das Joch nicht ab, das auf ihnen lastet? Warum lassen sie sich ihr Eigentum, das was sie selbst erarbeitet haben, von Prassern und Nichtstuern rauben? Warum geben sie sich in den Sklavendienst der Fabrikherrn, des Landbesitzers, des Geld- und Häuserbesitzers?" Wer also voll Zorn solche Einwendungen macht, hat eine Kleinigkeit vergessen. Das Bürgertum negiert den Staat nicht, es schränkt ihn nur ein, da wo er ihm lästig fällt. Aber eine Aufgabe hat der Staat, er sorgt für "Ruhe und Ordnung", d.h. vor allem er schützt das Privateigentum und die auf ihm beruhende Menschenaussaugung durch Gesetz, Gericht, Gefängnis, Militär, Kirche, Schule.

So verzweifelt lagen die Dinge, als die Lage des Proletariats immer unhaltbarer wurde, weil es in riesigem Maße anwuchs und jeder einzelne immer mehr herunterkam. Was hätte näher gelegen, als der einstimmige Ruf der unterdrückten Klasse: "Ihr habt den Staat, soweit er Euch behindert hat, zurückgedrängt; aber Ihr haltet ihn aufrecht, soweit er uns in Eurem Interesse unterdrückt. Wir stimmen ein in Euren Ruf: Freiheit! Aber nicht bloß Ausbeuterfreiheit, nein menschliche Freiheit! Der unterdrückte Mensch erhebt sich und nimmt sich das Recht, das man ihm vorenthält! Fort mit dem staatlichen Schutz Eurer Privilegien! Fort mit der Staatsknechtschaft!"

Dieser Ruf aber erklang nicht, und soweit er vereinzelt laut wurde, verhallte er ungehört, übertönt von einem vielstimmigen Geschrei, das von der entgegengesetzten Seite herüberdrang. Da hörte man: "Mehr Staat, mehr Staat! Der Staat ist alles, der Staat kann alles, der Staat soll alles! Da erklang es: Bisher hat man Euch Bourgeois die Freiheit gelassen, und man sieht, wie Ihr sie benutzt habt. Ihr habt Greise, Frauen und Kinder aufs Blut ausgebeutet. Ihr habt zu lange arbeiten lassen, Ihr habt die Arbeiter nicht geschützt gegen durch die Maschinen verursachten Unfälle, überhaupt, Ihr habt durch Eure Ausbeuterfreiheit eine Klasse von Menschen geschaffen, deren Leben kaum mehr ein Leben zu nennen ist. Ein großer Teil geht leiblich und geistig zurück, das sehen wir Männer vom Staat bei der Musterung für unsere Armee, und das kann im Staatsinteresse nicht geduldet werden. Der Arbeiter muß geschützt werden, dem Arbeiter muß geholfen werden, der Staat muß eingreifen! Eure Freiheit muß beschränkt werden!" So wurde der Arbeiter der Pflegebefohlene des Staates, der Staat war nicht mehr bloß Nachtwächter, er war das Mädchen für alles.

Und nun, um nicht mißverstanden zu werden: Wovon rede ich? Ich rede nicht nur von Bismarck und Lothar Bucher, ich meine damit auch Lasalle und Marx. Lasalle ging von der demokratischen Fortschrittspartei weg, nicht weiter nach links, zur Negation des Staates, zur ganzen Freiheit, sondern weiter zu Bismarck, zur Stärkung des Staates; er wollte einen gesättigten Magen auf Kosten der Freiheit. Seine Produktivassoziationen mit Staatskredit waren der Anfang, und am Ende wäre der Lohnarbeiter preußisch-deutscher Beamter mit Pensionsberechtigung geworden.

Und auch Marx gehört hierher. Ich will nicht davon reden, wie ausführlich und mit welcher Sympathie er die gesetzliche Regelung der Arbeitszeit in England in seinem Kapital behandelt; ich will nur von seiner bedeutendsten Schrift, vom Kommunistischen Manifeste, sprechen. Eine persönliche Bemerkung sei mir erlaubt. Ich habe es oft gelesen, und es hat mich immer hingerissen. Nun habe ich Marx ein paar Monate beiseite liegen lassen. Und gestern nahm ich das Kommunistische Manifest zur Hand mit dem bestimmten Vorsatz, mir nicht wieder imponieren zu lassen. Ich wollte es beherrschen, kritisieren. Nun, offen gestanden, ich bin unterlegen. Es hat mir wieder imponiert, mich wieder hingerissen. Das Kommunistische Manifest ist und bleibt ein genialer Wurf, eine großartige Konstruktion. Aber ich bewundere es nur noch als Kunstwerk, als die einheitliche, mächtige Durchführung eines Gedankens, zu einer Zeit (im Jahre 1847), wo man nur im allgemeinen konstruieren, aber kein Detail übersehen konnte. Ich behaupte aber, dieser Gedanke, den Marx großartig beleuchtete und meisterhaft zeichnete, dieser Gedanke war falsch.

Der erste Hauptteil des Manifestes schließt folgendermaßen: An die Stelle der alten bürgerlichen Gesellschaft mit ihren Klassen und Klassengegensätzen tritt eine Assoziation, worin die freie Entwicklung eines jeden die Bedingung für die freie Entwicklung aller ist. Dieses Ziel ist das Ziel aller freien Sozialisten und Anarchisten, und es ist kaum jemals kürzer und schöner in Worte gefaßt worden. Aber der Weg? Der Weg zu dieser Herrschaftslosigkeit ist bei Marx die Herrschaft, der Weg zu dieser Staatslosigkeit ist bei Marx der Staat. Darüber heißt es im Manifest: "Das Proletariat wird seine politische Herrschaft dazu benützen, der Bourgeoisie nach und nach alles Kapital zu entreißen, alle Produktionsinstrumente in den Händen des Staates, d.h. des als herrschende Klasse organisierten Proletariats zu zentralisieren, um die Masse der Produktionskräfte möglichst rasch zu vermehren."

In jener Zeit dachte man freilich noch nicht an die positive parlamentarische Mitarbeit, an die langsame Sozialreform mit dem heutigen Staat; Marx dachte an eine baldige blutige Revolution, in deren Verlauf die Vertreter des Proletariats zur diktatorischen Herrschaft gelangen sollten. Dann sollten sie in möglichster Beschleunigung von oben herunter soziale Umgestaltungen radikalster Art vornehmen, so daß diese Herrschaft bald überflüssig sein würde, in sich selbst zerginge und der ganzen Freiheit und Herrschaftslosigkeit Platz machte. Das war der Grundirrtum von Marx. Wo es Herrscher gibt, gibt es auch Beherrschte; und niemals haben Herrscher freiwillig auf ihre Gewalt verzichtet, und niemals werden sie es freiwillig tun. Was in dem Gedanken von Marx verborgen liegt, ohne daß er sich dessen bewußt ist, das ist eine zweite vollkommene, ganz und gar anders gestaltete Revolution, die nicht an die Stelle einer alten eine neue Herrschaft setzt, sondern die Herrschaft ausrottet und die ganze Freiheit ermöglicht.

Meine Ansicht ist aber die: Zwischenstufen sind vielleicht in Wirklichkeit nötig, weil das oder jenes in unvollkommener Weise ausgeführt wurde, aber sie sind nie am Platze in der Idee. Hat der Mensch ein Ziel, so geht er auf dieses Ziel los; und will ich die Herrschaftslosigkeit, die Freiheit von jedem menschlichen Drucke, so tue ich alles, um dieses Ziel mit einem Schlage zu erreichen. Ich mache mich vertraut mit der leidigen Möglichkeit, daß durch irgendwelche widrigen Umstände das Ziel nicht sofort in seiner ganzen Vollkommenheit erreicht wird; aber ich bescheide mich nicht schon vorher, etwas zu wollen, was ich nicht will. Der Mensch kann in einer Richtung nur eines wollen, nicht teils dieses, teils aber jenes. Will ich die Herrschaftslosigkeit, so kann ich nicht nach der Herrschaft streben. Ich strebe vielmehr danach, alle unterdrückenden Gewalten zu vernichten, und das Reich der ganzen Freiheit einzelner Menschen zu begründen. Habe ich dieses Ziel, so muß ich in der Gegenwart alles tun und vorbereiten, um dieses Ziel zu erreichen.

Marx will im Manifest die Herrschaft des Proletariats mit einem Schlage etablieren, seine Nachfolger, die marxistischen Sozialdemokraten, nehmen teil an den heute bestehenden staatlichen Gewalten. Ist dieser Unterschied so groß, daß wir, wenn wir's recht bedenken und den späteren Marx ins Auge fassen, das Recht haben, Marx gegen die heutige Sozialdemokratie auszuspielen? Ich denke, nein.

Und in diesem Zusammenhang komme ich nun auf die zweite Reihe der Überschrift: Politische Unfreiheit - politische Mitarbeit - Negation des Staates.

Zur Zeit, wo Marx das Manifest schrieb, ebenso wie teilweise heute noch in Österreich und Belgien, waren die Proletarier nicht im Besitz der politischen Rechte. Diese ungeheuer grell ins Auge stechende Ungerechtigkeit stachelt, wie die Dinge nun einmal liegen, durch die jahrhundertealte Tradition, daß die Revolutionen nur die Formen, aber nie die Sache berühren, ungeheuer zur Auflehnung und Empörung an. Wir haben jüngst erst in Belgien ein verpfuschtes Beispiel dafür erlebt. Nach Marx' Sinne nun hätte eine solche Revolution zur Herrschaft des Proletariats führen sollen.

Die Dinge sind aber allenthalben anders gekommen. Die politische Unfreiheit ist benommen worden, ohne daß sich die wirtschaftliche Lage der Arbeiterklasse im mindesten geändert hätte. Was hat das Proletariat, das Jahre und Jahrzehnte lang voll Zorn und leidenschaftlicher Glut für die Gleichberechtigung im Staatsleben gekämpft hatte? Man hatte ihm die politische Mitwirkung eingeräumt - kein Wunder, es wirkte mit. Aus der Herrschaft des Proletariats nach Marx ist eine Beteiligung an der heutigen Staatsherrschaft geworden, kraft deren das Proletariat hofft, allmählich und friedlich zur vollen Herrschaft zu gelangen. Was Marx 1847 nur in den Umrissen und unbestimmt gezeichnet hat, wird jetzt von der Sozialdemokratie bis in alle Einzelheiten ausgeführt. Ein prinzipieller Gegensatz aber besteht keineswegs. Aber durch diese ausführliche Detailmalerei hat sich nun auch unwiderleglich gezeigt, daß das Streben des Proletariats nach Herrschaft unmöglich die Freiheit bringen kann. Denn die Beteiligung am Staatsleben hat sich unlöslich verquickt mit der Staatshilfe auf sozialem Gebiet. Der Staat ist für die Sozialdemokratie der Schützer des Proletariats gegen die Manchesterfreiheit der Bourgeoisie geworden. "Staatszwang gegen Ausbeuterfreiheit" - das ist die Parole der sozialdemokratischen Partei geworden.

Unsere Parole aber ist: Ganze Freiheit gegen halbe; menschliche Freiheit gegen bürgerliche. Der Staat hat sich nicht um Handel und Wandel zu kümmern, aber er hat auch nicht für "Ruhe und Ordnung" zu sorgen, was nichts anderes heißt, als daß er das Privateigentum und die Ausbeuterprivilegien mit bewaffneter Hand beschützt.

Der Staat, er falle! Ob er Monarchie,

Ob Republik, ob sozial sich nenne.

Denn nie ist es geschehn, nie sag ich, nie,

Daß je im Staat der Freiheit Fackel brenne!

Der Staat ist Zwang. Er kennt nur Herrn und Knechte.

Wir aber wollen keins von beiden sein.

Wir wollen unsere heiligen Menschenrechte,

Um sie zu deuteln, keinem zweiten leihn!

(Mackay)

 

Die Anarchie ist unser Ziel, die Staats- und Herrschaftslosigkeit, das Ende der Ausbeutung auf jedem Gebiet, auf dem wirtschaftlichen, dem geistigen und dem politischen, und alles müssen wir tun, damit nicht auf der Stätte der heutigen Gewalten neue Herrschaft sich breit mache. Eure bedrückende, haltende und beschattende Hand weg von der freien Erde, Ihr Herren, Sklaventreiber und Herrschaftslüsterne! Frei sei der Mensch auf freier Erde!

Befreien wir die Erde und das Menschengeschlecht. Schließe sich jeder seiner gewerkschaftlichen Organisation an und kämpfe in ihnen gegen seine speziellen Ausbeuter. Der Tag der Befreiung kommt so rascher und sicherer. Jeder Arbeiter und jeder freie und selbständige Mensch unser Freund; jeder Ausbeuter und jeder Staatsgehilfe und Herrenknecht unser Feind. Jedes Werk freier Wissenschaft und freier Kunst unser Bundesgenosse, jedes Pfaffengeschmier und Staatsgeschnatter ein Greuel unseren Sinnen. Jede kühne Tat, jedes freie Erleben steht uns nah, alles Bücken und Ducken, alles Fügen und Eindämmen ist uns gemein.

Agitieren wir, rütteln wir auf! Künden wir allen Menschen ihren Menschenwert! Kein Sklave so klein, daß er nicht groß genug werden könnte. Kein Herr so groß, daß wir ihn nicht klein kriegen könnten.

Alles für unser Ziel, Gut und Blut, Leib und Leben. Ein Ende der Knechtschaft, es lebe die Freiheit!

Anarchosyndikalismus auf mises.org?

Etwas erstaunt entdeckte ich diesen Morgen auf der Webseite des Mises-Instituts einen Aufsatz von Jeff Riggenbach mit dem Titel "A tribute to Rudolf Rocker". Letzten Endes meint Riggenbach zwar, Rocker, dessen Biographie er ein wenig in Parallele zu Mises' Lebenslauf setzt, sei ein "ökonomischer Illiterat", da Sozialist, letzten Endes ist der Artikel aber durchaus lesbar und im großen und ganzen fair bis freundlich gegenüber dem Klassiker des Anarchosyndikalismus.

171 Jahre Henry George

Am 2. September 1839 wurde in Philadelphia Henry George geboren, der, nachdem er mit 14 als Matrose angeheuert hatte, später Goldgräber und (ähnlich wie Proudhon) Typograph wurde, und schließlich Eigentümer der San Francisco Daily Evening Post war, mit Progress and Poverty (1879) einen Bestseller landete. In diesem Werk legt George u.a. das Kernstück seiner sozialreformerischen Ideen dar: die "Single Tax" auf der Bodenrente, die sämtliche anderen Steuern ablösen sollte. 1886 wurde er als Kandidat der gewerkschaftsnahen United Labor Party fast zum Bürgermeister von New York City (Anhänger von George warfen den erfolgreichen Demokraten Wahlbetrug vor). Georges Ideen, die heute außerhalb der USA fast unbekannt sind, haben dort noch einige Verteidiger, unter anderem die sogenannten "Geolibertarians" auf der libertären Linken, jedoch hat auch der frühere grüne bzw. unabhängige Präsidentschaftskandidat Ralph Nader schon wiederholt für eine Variante der Georgeschen "Land value tax" ausgesprochen.

Wie andere Autoren des 19. Jahrhunderts wie etwa Thomas Hodgskin oder Benjamin Tucker, mag die Bezeichnung "Sozialist" bei George erstaunen, da er gleichzeitig für Freihandel eintritt und in vielerlei Hinsicht als Liberaler erscheint. In der Tat waren Sozialismus und Freihandel für George kein Gegensatz, sondern bedingten sich sogar gegenseitig, so der folgende Text, das 28. Kapitel von Protection or Free Trade (1886, nach der Ausgabe in den Complete Works, Band IV, S.299-312):

Free Trade and Socialism

Throughout the civilized world, and pre-eminently in Great Britain and the United States, a power is now arising which is capable of carrying the principles of free trade to their logical conclusion. But there are difficulties in the way of concentrating this power on such a purpose.

It requires reflection to see that manifold effects result from a single cause, and that the remedy for a multitude of evils may lie in one simple reform. As in the infancy of medicine, men were disposed to think each distinct symptom called for a distinct remedy, so when thought begins to turn to social subjects there is a disposition to seek a special cure for every ill, or else (another form of the same shortsightedness) to imagine the only adequate remedy to be something which presupposes the absence of those ills; as, for instance, that all men should be good, as the cure for vice and crime; or that all men should be provided for by the State, as the cure for poverty.

There is now sufficient social discontent and a sufficient desire for social reform to accomplish great things if concentrated on one line. But attention is distracted and effort divided by schemes of reform which though they may be good in themselves are, with reference to the great end to be attained, either inadequate or super-adequate.

Here is a traveler who, beset by robbers, has been left bound, blindfolded, and gagged. Shall we stand in a knot about him and discuss whether to put a piece of court-plaster on his cheek or a new patch on his coat, or shall we dispute with each other as to what road he ought to take and whether a bicycle, a tricycle, a horse and wagon, or a railway, would best help him on? Should we not rather postpone such discussion until we have cut the man's bonds? Then he can see for himself, speak for himself, and help himself. Though with a scratched cheek and a torn coat, he may get on his feet, and if he cannot find a conveyance to suit him, he will at least be free to walk.

Very much like such a discussion is a good deal of that now going on over "the social problem"—a discussion in which all sorts of inadequate and impossible schemes are advocated to the neglect of the simple plan of removing restrictions and giving Labor the use of its own powers.  

This is the first thing to do. And, if not of itself sufficient to cure all social ills and bring about the highest social state, it will at least remove the primary cause of widespread poverty, give to all the opportunity to use their labor and secure the earnings that are its due, stimulate all improvement, and make all other reforms easier.

It must be remembered that reforms and improvements in themselves good may be utterly inefficient to work any general improvement until some more fundamental reform is carried out. It must be remembered that there is in every work a certain order which must be observed to accomplish anything. To a habitable house a roof is as important as walls; and we express in a word the end to which a house is built when we speak of putting a roof over our heads. But we cannot build a house from roof down; we must build from foundation up.  

To recur to our simile of the laborer habitually preyed upon by a series of robbers. It is surely wiser in him to fight them one by one, than all together. And the robber that takes all he has left is the one against whom his efforts should first be directed. For no matter how he may drive off the other robbers, that will not avail him except as it may make it easier to get rid of the robber that takes all that is left. But by withstanding this robber he will secure immediate relief, and being able to get home more of his earnings than before, will be able so to nourish and strengthen himself that he can better contend with robbers—can, perhaps, buy a gun or hire a lawyer, according to the method of fighting in fashion in his country. 

It is in just such a way as this that Labor must seek to rid itself of the robbers that now levy upon its earnings. Brute strength will avail little unless guided by intelligence.

The first attempts of workingmen to improve their condition are by combining to demand higher wages of their direct employers. Something can be done in this way for those within such organizations; but it is after all very little. For a trades-union can only artificially lessen competition within the trade; it cannot affect the general conditions which force men into bitter competition with each other for the opportunity to gain a living. And such organizations as the Knights of Labor, which are to trades-unions what the trades-union is to its individual members, while they give greater power, must encounter the same difficulties in their efforts to raise wages directly. All such efforts have the inherent disadvantage of struggling against general tendencies. They are like the attempts of a man in a crowd to gain room by forcing back those who press upon him—like attempts to stop a great engine by the sheer force of human muscle, without cutting off steam.  

This, those who are at first inclined to put faith in the power of trades-unionism are beginning to see, and the logic of events must more and more lead them to see. But the perception that to accomplish large results general tendencies must be controlled, inclines those who do not analyze these tendencies into their causes to transfer faith from some form of the voluntary organization of labor to some form of governmental organization and direction.

All varieties of what is vaguely called socialism recognize with more or less clearness the solidarity of the interests of the masses of all countries. Whatever may be objected to socialism in its extremest forms, it has at least the merit of lessening national prejudices and aiming at the disbandment of armies and the suppression of war. It is thus opposed to the cardinal tenet of protectionism that the interests of the people of different "nations" are diverse and antagonistic. But, on the other hand, those who call themselves socialists, so far from being disposed to look with disfavor upon governmental interference and regulation, are disposed to sympathize with protection as in this respect in harmony with socialism, and to regard free trade, at least as it has been popularly presented, as involving a reliance on that principle of free competition which to their thinking means the crushing of the weak.

Let us endeavor, as well as can in brief be done, to trace the relations between the conclusions to which we have come and what, with various shades of meaning, is termed "socialism." (*)

In socialism as distinguished from individualism there is an unquestionable truth—and that a truth to which (especially by those most identified with freetrade principles) too little attention has been paid. Man is primarily an individual—a separate entity, differing from his fellows in desires and powers, and requiring for the exercise of those powers and the gratification of those desires individual play and freedom. But he is also a social being, having desires that harmonize with those of his fellows, and powers that can only be brought out in concerted action. There is thus a domain of individual action and a domain of social action—some things which can best be done when each acts for himself, and some things which can best be done when society acts for all its members. And the natural tendency of advancing civilization is to make social conditions relatively more important, and more and more to enlarge the domain of social action. This has not been sufficiently regarded, and at the present time, evil unquestionably results from leaving to individual action functions that by reason of the growth of society and the development of the arts have passed into the domain of social action; just as on the other hand, evil unquestionably results from social interference with what properly belongs to the individual. Society ought not to leave the telegraph and the railway to the management and control of individuals; nor yet ought society to step in and collect individual debts or attempt to direct individual industry.

But while there is a truth in socialism which individualists forget, there is a school of socialists who in like manner ignore the truth there is in individualism, and whose propositions for the improvement of social conditions belong to the class I have called "super-adequate." Socialism in its narrow sense—the socialism that would have the State absorb capital and abolish competition—is the scheme of men who, looking upon society in its most complex organization, have failed to see that principles obvious in a simpler stage still hold true in the more intimate relations that result from the division of labor and the use of complex tools and methods, and have thus fallen into fallacies elaborated by the economists of a totally different school, who have taught that capital is the employer and sustainer of labor, and have striven to confuse the distinction between property in land and property in labor-products. Their scheme is that of men who, while revolting from the heartlessness and hopelessness of the "orthodox political economy," are yet entangled in its fallacies and blinded by its confusions. Confounding "capital" with "means of production," and accepting the dictum that "natural wages" are the least on which competition can force the laborer to live, they essay to cut a knot they do not see how to unravel, by making the State the sole capitalist and employer, and abolishing competition.

The carrying on by government of all production and exchange, as a remedy for the difficulty of finding employment on the one side, and for overgrown fortunes on the other, belongs to the same category as the prescription that all men should be good. That if all men were assigned proper employment and all wealth fairly distributed, then none would need employment and there would be no injustice in distribution, is as indisputable a proposition as that if all were good none would be bad. But it will not help a man perplexed as to his path to tell him that the way to get to his journey's end is to get there.

That all men should be good is the greatest desideratum, but it can only be secured by the abolition of conditions which tempt some and drive others into evil doing. That each should render according to his abilities and receive according to his needs, is indeed the very highest social state of which we can conceive, but how shall we hope to attain such perfection until we can first find some way of securing to every man the opportunity to labor and the fair earnings of his labor. Shall we try to be generous before we have learned how to be just?

All schemes for securing equality in the conditions of men by placing the distribution of wealth in the hands of government have the fatal defect of beginning at the wrong end. They pre-suppose pure government; but it is not government that makes society; it is society that makes government; and until there is something like substantial equality in the distribution of wealth, we cannot expect pure government.

But to put all men on a footing of substantial equality, so that there could be no dearth of employment, no "over-production," no tendency of wages to the minimum of subsistence, no monstrous fortunes on the one side and no army of proletarians on the other, it is not necessary that the state should assume the ownership of all the means of production and become the general employer and universal exchanger; it is necessary only that the equal rights of all to that primary means of production which is the source all other means of production are derived from, should be asserted. And this, so far from involving an extension of governmental functions and machinery, involves, as we have seen, their great reduction. It would thus tend to purify government in two ways—first by the betterment of the social conditions on which purity in government depends, and second, by the simplification of administration. This step taken, and we could safely begin to add to the functions of the state in its proper or co-operative sphere.

There is in reality no conflict between labor and capital; (**) the true conflict is between labor and monopoly. That a rich employer "squeezes" needy workmen may be true. But does this squeezing power result from his riches or from their need? No matter how rich an employer might be, how would it be possible for him to squeeze workmen who could make a good living for themselves without going into his employment? The competition of workmen with workmen for employment, which is the real cause that enables, and even in most cases forces, the employer to squeeze his workmen, arises from the fact that men, debarred of the natural opportunities to employ themselves, are compelled to bid against one another for the wages of an employer. Abolish the monopoly that forbids men to employ themselves, and capital could not possibly oppress labor. In no case could the capitalist obtain labor for less than the laborer could get by employing himself. Once remove the cause of that injustice which deprives the laborer of the capital his toil creates, and the sharp distinction between capitalist and laborer would, in fact, cease to exist.

They who, seeing how men are forced by competition to the extreme of human wretchedness, jump to the conclusion that competition should be abolished, are like those who, seeing a house burn down, would prohibit the use of fire.

The air we breathe exerts upon every square inch of our bodies a pressure of fifteen pounds. Were this pressure exerted only on one side, it would pin us to the ground and crush us to a jelly. But being exerted on all sides, we move under it with perfect freedom. It not only does not inconvenience us, but it serves such indispensable purposes that, relieved of its pressure, we should die.

So it is with competition. Where there exists a class denied all right to the element necessary to life and labor, competition is one-sided, and as population increases must press the lowest class into virtual slavery, and even starvation. But where the natural rights of all are secured, then competition, acting on every hand—between employers as between employed; between buyers as between sellers—can injure no one. On the contrary it becomes the most simple, most extensive, most elastic, and most refined system of co-operation, that, in the present stage of social development, and in the domain where it will freely act, we can rely on for the co-ordination of industry and the economizing of social forces.

In short, competition plays just such a part in the social organism as those vital impulses which are beneath consciousness do in the bodily organism. With it, as with them, it is only necessary that it should be free. The line at which the state should come in is that where free competition becomes impossible—a line analogous to that which in the individual organism separates the conscious from the unconscious functions. There is such a line, though extreme socialists and extreme individualists both ignore it. The extreme individualist is like the man who would have his hunger provide him food; the extreme socialist is like the man who would have his conscious will direct his stomach how to digest it.

Individualism and socialism are in truth not antagonistic but correlative. Where the domain of the one principle ends that of the other begins. And although the motto Laissez faire has been taken as the watch word of an individualism that tends to anarchism, and so-called free traders have made "the law of supply and demand" a stench in the nostrils of men alive to social injustice, there is in free trade nothing that conflicts with a rational socialism. On the contrary, we have but to carry out the free trade principle to its logical conclusions to see that it brings us to such socialism.

The free-trade principle is, as we have seen, the principle of free production—it requires not merely the abolition of protective tariffs, but the removal of all restrictions upon production.

Within recent years a class of restrictions on production, imposed by concentrations and combinations which have for their purpose the limiting of production and the increase of prices, have begun to make themselves felt and to assume greater and greater importance.

This power of combinations to restrict production arises in some cases from temporary monopolies granted by our patent laws, which (being the premium that society holds out to invention), have a compensatory principle, however faulty they may be in method.

Such cases aside, this power of restricting production is derived, in part, from tariff restrictions. Thus the American steel makers who have recently limited their production, and put up the price of rails 40 per cent. at one stroke, are enabled to do this only by the heavy duty on imported rails. They are able, by combination, to put up the price of steel rails to the point at which they could be imported plus the duty, but no further. Hence, with the abolition of the duty this power would be gone. To prevent the play of competition, a combination of the steel workers of the whole world would then be necessary, and this is practically impossible.

In other part, this restrictive power arises from ability to monopolize natural advantages. This would be destroyed if the taxation of land values made it unprofitable to hold land without using it. In still other part, it arises from the control of businesses which in their nature do not admit of competition, such as those of railway, telegraph, gas, and other similar companies.

I read in the daily papers that half a dozen representatives of the "anthracite coal interest" met last evening (March 24, 1886), in an office in New York. Their conference, interrupted only by a collation, lasted till three o'clock in the morning. When they separated they had come to "an understanding among gentlemen" to restrict the production of anthracite coal and advance its price.

Now how comes it that half a dozen men, sitting around some bottles of champagne and a box of cigars in a New York office, can by an "understanding among gentlemen" compel Pennsylvania miners to stand idle, and advance the price of coal along the whole eastern seaboard? The power thus exercised is derived in various parts from three sources.

1. From the protective duty on coal. Free trade would abolish that.
2. From the power to monopolize land, which enables them to prevent others from using coal deposits which they will not use themselves. True free trade, as we have seen, would abolish that.
3. From the control of railways, and the consequent power of fixing rates and making discriminations in transportation.

The power of fixing rates of transportation, and in this way of discriminating against persons and places, is a power essentially of the same nature as that exercised by governments in levying import duties. And the principle of free trade as clearly requires the removal of such restrictions as it requires the removal of import duties. But here we reach a point where positive action on the part of government is needed. Except as between terminal or "competitive" points where two or more roads meet (and as to these the tendency is, by combination or "pooling," to do away with competition), the carrying of goods and passengers by rail, like the business of telegraph, telephone, gas, water, or similar companies, is in its nature a monopoly. To prevent restrictions and discriminations, governmental control is therefore required. Such control is not only not inconsistent with the free-trade principle; it follows from it, just as the interference of government to prevent and punish assaults upon persons and property follows from the principle of individual liberty. Thus, if we carry free trade to its logical conclusions we are inevitably led to what monopolists, who wish to be "let alone" to plunder the public, denounce as "socialism," and which is, indeed, socialism, in the sense that it recognizes the true domain of social functions.

Whether businesses in their nature monopolies should be regulated by law or should be carried on by the community, is a question of method. It seems to me, however, that experience goes to show that better results can be secured, with less risk of governmental corruption, by state management than by state regulation. But the great simplification of government which would result from the abolition of the present complex and demoralizing modes of taxation would vastly increase the ease and safety with which either of these methods could be applied. The assumption by the state of all those social functions in which competition will not operate would involve nothing like the strain upon governmental powers, and would be nothing like as provocative of corruption and dishonesty, as our present method of collecting taxes. The more equal distribution of wealth that would ensue from the reform which thus simplified government, would, moreover, increase public intelligence and purify public morals, and enable us to bring a higher standard of honesty and ability to the management of public affairs. We have no right to assume that men would be as grasping and dishonest in a social state where the poorest could get an abundant living as they are in the present social state, where the fear of poverty begets insane greed.

There is another way, moreover, in which true free trade tends strongly to socialism, in the highest and best sense of the term. The taking for the use of the community of that value of privilege which attaches to the possession of land, would, wherever social development has advanced beyond a certain stage, yield revenues even larger than those now raised by taxation, while there would be an enormous reduction in public expenses consequent, directly and indirectly, upon the abolition of present modes of taxation. Thus would be provided a fund, increasing steadily with social growth, that could be applied to social purposes now neglected. And among the purposes which will suggest themselves to the reader by which the surplus income of the community could be used to increase the sum of human knowledge, the diffusion of elevating tastes, and the gratification of healthy desires, there is none more worthy than that of making honorable provision for those deprived of their natural protectors, of through no fault of their own incapacitated for the struggle of life.

We should think it sin and shame if a great steamer, dashing across the ocean, were not brought to a stop by a signal of distress from the meanest smack; at the sight of an infant lashed to a spar, the mighty ship would round to, and men would spring to launch a boat in angry seas. Thus strongly does the bond of our common humanity appeal to us when we get beyond the hum of civilized life. And yet—a miner is entombed alive, a painter falls from a scaffold, a brakeman is crushed in coupling cars, a merchant fails, falls ill and dies, and organized society leaves widow and children to bitter want or degrading alms. This ought not to be. Citizenship in a civilized community ought of itself to be insurance against such a fate. And having in mind that the income which the community ought to obtain from the land to which the growth of the community gives value is in reality not a tax but the proceeds of a just rent, an English Democrat (William Saunders, M. P.) puts in this phrase the aim of true free trade: "No taxes at all, and a pension to everybody."

This is denounced as "the rankest socialism" by those whose notion of the fitness of things is, that the descendants of royal favorites and blue-blooded thieves should be kept in luxurious idleness all their lives long, by pensions wrung from struggling industry, while the laborer and his wife, worn out by hard work, for which they have received scarce living wages, are degraded by a parish dole, or separated from each other in a "work-house."

If this is socialism, then, indeed, is it true that free trade leads to socialism.

(*)

The term "socialism" is used so loosely that it is hard to attach to it a definite meaning. I myself am classed as a socialist by those who denounce socialism, while those who profess themselves socialists declare me not to be one. For my own part I neither claim nor repudiate the name, and realizing as I do the correlative truth of both principles can no more call myself an individualist or a socialist than one who considers the forces by which the planets are held to their orbits could call himself a centrifugalist or a centripetalist. The German socialism of the school of Marx (of which the leading representative in England is Mr. H. M. Hyndman, and the best exposition in America has been given by Mr. Laurence Gronlund), seems to me a high-purposed but incoherent mixture of truth and fallacy, the defects of which may be summed up in its want of radicalism—that is to say, of going to the root.

(**)

The great source of confusion in regard to such matters arises from the failure to attach any definite meaning to terms. It must always be remembered that nothing that can be classed either as labor or as land can be accounted capital in any definite use of the term, and that much that we commonly speak of as capital—such as solvent debts, government bonds, etc—is in reality not even wealth—which all true capital must be. For a fuller elucidation of this, as of similar points, I must refer the reader to my Progress and Poverty.