Two Ideological Perspectives on the Use of Coercive Political Power

The current political malaise in the United States can be best understood in terms of two conflicting ideological perspectives on the the nature and use of political power. On the far left we have the progressives, on the far right we have the libertarians. There is a lot of variation within both ideologies. However, in the United States progressives usually lean toward the far left of the Democratic Party, the libertarians usually lean toward the far right of the Republican Party. However, neither progressives nor libertarians dominate their respective parties. The progressive-libertarian debate is a very old and important debate, therefore it's still worth reviewing those two ideologies.

Progressives are idealists that believe that political entities (cities, states, and nations) must deploy the coercive of power of government in order to serve the public good. Progressive government requires that altruistic, impartial, objective leaders that will exercise political power in pursuit of the "public good." Good government, therefore, requires that political entities seek out these "good leaders." When government fails to serve the public good it is because the political system has become infested with self-serving leaders that use their political power to enrich themselves, their families, and friends at the expense of the public good: call it cronyism. Therefore, the key to progressive government is to devise a political system that selects these "good leaders." Plato believed that in order to maintain a sufficient supply of "good leaders," the state must develop selective breeding programs and specialtized education programs. Contemporary American progressives reject selective breeding, but place invest heavily in law degrees earned at elite private schools, most notably Yale and Harvard. Coercive force is exercised in the form of a "progressive" tax code, which provides the funds to serve the public good. In the United States, progressives tend to equate serving the public good to implimenting government programs that serve the unmet needs of the "least advantaged," the poor, workers, consumers, elderly, sick, racial minorities, and women. This agenda requires large numbers of workers employed by tax-funded government agencies. For most progressives, knowledge of the "public good" and knowledge of how to achieve it usually relegated to empowered social scientists. On foreign policy, many progressives support the use of U.S. military power to advance the "public good."        

Libertarians are idealists that believe that coercive power is always wrong, either because it violates the property rights of others or because it leads to bad comsequences. Taxation is regarded as problematic because it resembles theft; that is the involutary appropriation of another person's property. Libertarians also argue that knowledge of the public good and how to achieve it is elusive, if not impossible. Social scientists routinely identify the "public good" with the good of the social scientists themselves, or their cronies in government that empowered them. Libertarians are especially wary of the rise of cronyism, where government serves the good of specific interest groups, especially: corportations, labor unions, churches, and the military. All libertarians are against the use of military power unless we're actually invaded by a foreign nation. Therefore, according to libertarians, the secret to good government is to either eliminate the coercive power of government (anarchism) or limit the coercive power of government (minarchy).

Anarchists reject government outright, and idealistically believe that if individuals (and groups of cooperating individuals) are left to make their own decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions, human society would thrive. Anarchists argue that because progressive governments "spend other people's money," they tend to be overly-generous to the least advantaged and public employees, and less concerned with "bang for the buck" efficiency. Moreover, anarchists observe that over time, collectivized power tends to corrupt even the most altruistic, and impartial leaders. Social science is similarly corrupted. Therefore, progressive governments tend to collapse under the weight of military adventurism coupled with the high levels of taxation needed to serve the bureaucracies that serve the "military-industrial complex" and the ever-growing ranks of "least advantaged." Anarchists argue that eventually everyone becomes either a soldier or "least advantaged." Thus, under anarchy all collective functions are met by non-governmental entities, including the: military, police force, criminal justice system, and social welfare.

Minarchists embrace limited government; that is government that is limited to using tax money to provide a defensive military, police force, and judiciary. Some minarchists, like myself, are also willing to include a "basic safety net" to protect the "least advantaged." Anarchists, however, insist that minarchy is unsustainable and that, over time, minarchism becomes progressivism. Altruistic politicians and social scientists are eventually corrupted by power. Progressives argue that the limited power of minarchism, inevitably leads to under-funded military, police, judiciary, and safety nets.

Today, the idealists on the far left (progressives) and the far right (anarchists) are unwilling to compromise and therefore the U.S. government now mired in gridlock. Since minarchists draw criticism from both the far left and the far right, they now occupy the centrist position in U.S. Politics. I would argue that the future of the United States lies in the formation of a coalition of progressives and libertarians that are willing to limit the exercise of concentrated political power, but not necessarily eliminate it. Politically, this might result in the formation of a political alliance between Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.                                        

Nuanced Cooperation

In my previous blog entry I suggested that social scientists often overlook some of the finer points in human cooperation. Let's continue that diatribe! Obviously, the word "cooperation" is notoriously vague. It is a relational term that can mean just about anything. So let's call my new approach: "nuanced cooperation." Obviously, cooperation requires at least two persons, unless you suffer from multiple-personality disorder. Under normal, healthy psychological circumstances, you cannot cooperate with yourself or with a thing. Individuals can cooperate with other individuals and/or groups, and groups can cooperate with other groups and/or individuals. One of the nuances that is almost entirely overlooked in discussions of cooperation is the obvious fact that there are varying degrees of cooperation. So why do we cooperate in varying degrees? Well...because we live in a finite world and therefore individuals and groups cannot afford to contribute time, energy, and resources to all cooperative enterprise. Hence, finite humans ration their cooperative time, energy, and resources. Many if not most individual enterprises involve both cooperation and competition from other enterprises. Even Bill Gates rations his finite resources! Given the vast number of cooperative opportunities in our social environment, we are all probably more non-cooperative than cooperative. Therefore, it's probably more accurate to portray modern humans as a non-cooperative.

All cooperative enterprises involve planning in pursuit of ends or goals. Collective enterprises orchestrated by groups (or organizations) require collective planning, which in turn requires leader-follower relationships. A good leader attracts followers, a bad leader repels followers. Individual enterprises require individual planning.  And, of course, there are better and worse forms of individual and collective planning. Ineffective planning usually leads to failure to achieve one's goals. We are non-cooperative when we prefer not to contribute our time, energy or resources to any given enterprise. Even when we choose to cooperate, we limit the amount of time, energy, and resources that we commit to various cooperative enterprises. Consequently, most enterprises eventually suffer from extinction due to competition from other enterprises. The number of cooperators associated with the horse and buggy industry and the Flat Earth Society has been greatly diminished.   

Of course, there's a lot moral discourse associated with how individuals and groups ration time, energy, and resources, especially when it comes to beneficent enterprises. There are many enterprises conducted by charitable organizations that are worthy of our cooperation. But it's impossible to contribute time, effort, and resources to all of them! Our personal friends and relatives often request our beneficent cooperation in pursuit of their personal ends (or goals). If you have a lot of "needy" friends, these requests can really drain your time, energy, and resources. Parents with young children and adult children with old parents experience the finitude of time, energy, and resources. Everyone believes that their own particular enterprise is worthy of the time, effort, and resources of others, and therefore, we are often offended when others choose to be non-cooperative, or contribute less to our enterprise than we'd like.

Some cooperative enterprises are immoral and therefore, not only do we refuse to cooperate, we actively seek to undermine those enterprises. Some immoral enterprises pursue immoral goals, some employ immoral means, and some pursue both immoral ends via immoral means. Unfortunately, we ration our cooperation based on imperfect information, and unwittingly contribute time, effort, or resources to illegal and/or immoral enterprises. One way to dress up a repulsive enterprise is to lie about it's means and/or ends. How many bogus charitable organizations have you contributed to?
Moreover, human cooperation has always been conditioned by both enticements (rewards) and coercive threats (punishments). Many cooperative enterprises involve reciprocity; that is cooperation is based on "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." However, we all willingly contribute variable quantities of our time, energy, and resources to various enterprises in the absence of either enticements or threats. And, depending on your supply of time, energy, and resources, if you commit yourself to to many cooperative enterprises, your contribution to any one enterprise might be negligible, or even border on non-cooperative.

Finally, given the inevitable competition between cooperative enterprises, all enterprises eventually suffer extinction. Where's that Roman Empire now? One way to avoid extinction is to force individuals and groups to contribute time, effort, and resources to your particular enterprise. However, forced cooperation is no panacea. Those who control enterprises that provide the coercive force that sustains involuntary cooperation, also ration their own time, energy, and resources, and therefore, usually demand more and more of your time, effort, and resources to monitor and control those who prefer non-cooperation. How many DEA agents, fences, courts, and prisons will it take to monitor and enforce the ongoing Drug War enterprise? There is a general understanding that Libertarians are committed to voluntary cooperation and therefore they reject forceful seizure of the time, energy, and resources of others; and the expansion of coercive force necessary to insure all forms of involuntary cooperation.         

Libertarian Leadership Theory and the Flow of Information, Misinformation, and Disinformation

So far, I've been arguing that we have a biological and cultural bias that over-values "leaders," and therefore, we tend to grant them too much authority over our lives and over-pay them relative to what they actually contribute to human organizations. If I'm right, the obvious question is: "How did this tradition become entrenched in Western culture?" My answer is that it has a lot to do with the nature of information and how it flows (or does not flow) within and between organizations.

All evolutionary systems exchange energy and/or information. The precise nature of the relationship between energy (or matter) and information is puzzling. DNA is matter that conveys information. And all information is processed by our brains. Does that mean that all information is "really" matter? Does materialism win out. Let's not talk about that right now. Let's just assume that it makes sense to talk about information apart from its material substrate. One thing we do know is that the concept of information is front-loaded; that is, we use the word "information" only in contexts where we believe that a statement is true. Hence, we have other words that we employ in different contexts. For example, misinformation is information we once believed to be true, but subsequently turned out to be false under evolutionary pressure. Call it the process of "creative destruction." Evolutionary epistemologists argue that this process of falsification is endless and that we get closer to the "Truth" over the long run, but never really arrive at absolute truth. Species never reach their final evolutionary state either. Why? Because physical and cultural systems constantly change under pressure from internal sub-systems and external systems. So far, we've looked at the concepts of information and misinformation. Although there are a few epistemic puzzles, they seem pretty straightforward. The real problem for cultural evolution is "disinformation" (sometimes called propaganda or ideology). Disinformation emerges out of the exercise of power within hierarchical social structures. Plato called it the "Noble Lie," where the Philosopher King deliberately tell lies to followers (populace) in order to provide a "greater good." Plato was no dummy, he also recognized that leaders often lie out of self interest.

So here's the rub. When followers allow leaders to control the the flow of information, what is to prevent those leaders from telling "ignoble lies, to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else? Plato argued that leaders must be virtuous (good, wise, temperate, and courageous etc.) and that the capacity for virtue is mostly inherited, and can be undermined by dysfunctional social structure. Hence, for Plato "good leaders" are more likely to arise in "republics," and less likely to emerge in military governments, oligarchies, democracies, or under tyranny. Today, we believe that we can teach our future leaders these virtues (at least to a greater extent). My thesis is that when leaders have the power to control the flow of information in order to advance the public good, three problems arise: they wrongfully mistake information for misinformation. No problem there, we all make mistakes. Even President Obama! A second problem is that they make a mistake in identifying the public good, or mistake private good for public good. That's more serious. The most serious problem arises when leaders take either information or misinformation and transform it into disinformation in pursuit of either self-interest or the interests of their friends and relatives. In the private sector we call it "crony capitalism." It's a serious disease that infects all complex modern societies.

My hypothesis is that most human organizations are knee deep in disinformation promulgated by self-interested leaders. Let's call it the "Enron Effect," where leaders skillfully manipulate the flow of information within their organizations and between organizations. As a result, leaders can attract and maintain a critical mass of followers by skillfully controlling the flow of information. The more complex an organizations internal institutions and the more complex the legal structure, the easier it is for leaders to manufacture Truth. Even when we catch them in the act of lying, we rarely hold them responsible. Why? Because of our biologically and culturally based reverence for leaders. In the modern world we really have to be more critical followers and abandon bad leaders; or better yet, let's just refuse to engage in most followership.

My libertarian theory of leadership suggests that leaders that operate within hierarchical social structures take advantage of the increasing complexity of human organizational life by generating disinformation that protects themselves from competition, increases their power, and ultimately the size of their wallets. In other words, the complexity of modern life has undermined the liklihood of virtuous leadership and that before we can advance as a modern society, we have to abandon our unbridled faith in heroic leaders and move more toward self-organized social structures that allow for the free flow of information within and between organizations. Of course, that means I'll have to explain what I mean by a leaderless, self-organized social system. I'll try to do that in my next blog.

A Libertarian Theory of Followership

Because of our biological and cultural programming, researchers continue to focus on male-dominated "heroic leadership" with little regard for the facts and values associated with followership. So first of all, let's clear the air. There are no leaders without followers and there are no followers with out leaders. Therefore, our obsession with freestanding leaders and our relative disregard for followership is itself is worthy of explanation and commentary! Second, let's also admit that if there are better and worse leaders (in terms of both effectiveness and morality), there are also better and worse followers. And third, let's admit that (for better or worse), over time, leaders influence followers and followers influence leaders; that is, leaders and followers adapt to their organizational environments. Fourth, organizations, leaders, and followers are all influenced (for better or worse) by other organizations in their environment. And fifth, sometimes organizations, leaders, and followers cooperate in pursuit of their respective goals and sometimes they compete. If this sounds complicated, you're right!

Now a libertarian theory of followership is a prescriptive or moral theory based on aforementioned facts. So what are the necessary conditions for ethical followership? Obviously, libertarianism requires that followership be voluntary. I like John Rawls' term "voluntary association." Hence all organizations must include freedom of exit. Why? Because sometimes powerful leaders threaten to use lethal force to prevent followers from exiting non-voluntary organizations. And of course, sometimes followers employ lethal force to remove leaders. (Assassination of leaders by followers is embarassingly common and probably unique to humans and chimpanzees.) This also suggests that sometimes followers care more about organizations than they care about their leaders, and sometimes (perhaps more often) they care more about their leaders than their organizations. In so far as libertarians take the non-aggression axiom seriously, the use of lethal aggression to remove leaders can be employed only in self-defense. Otherwise, we are morally required to exit dysfunctional and/or immoral organizations. Although the "heroic theory" of leadership and followership would label this strategy as cowardly, or effeminate, it works; economists call it "creative destruction." Remember, there are no leaders without followers. There are, however, self-organized, leaderless organizations. More on that in a subsequent blog.

Sometimes followers follow leaders based on false or misleading information. My next blog entry will attempt to sketch in how the flow of information within and between organzations influences the survival and extinction of organizations and why libertarian followers must be wary of misinformation and/or disinformation diseminated by leaders.

The Road to Serfdom: Part 1

My philosophy class has been finishing up the semester by reading F.A. Hayek's classic work, The Road to Serfdom. Admittedly, its not often assigned in introduction to philosophy courses. Philosophers will forgive me, given that we also read: Plato's Republic; Machiavelli's, The Prince; Marx's Communist Manefesto; and Skinner's, Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Throughout the course I emphasized three major relational themes: the nature of human knowledge and it's relationship to politics, the relationship between leaders and followers, and relationship between social groupings and individuals. I thought I'd devote the next two blog entries to Hayek as a social and political philosopher.


Before we get started, it is important to note that Hayek acknowledges that human beings are individuals that live in communities organized via leadership and followership. We usually organize communities via dominance hierarchies, ruled by Alpha Males. He also acknowledges that we are emotional beings driven by fear, and that much of our communal life is aimed at securing our individual lives from the forces that provoke those fears. The central question for social and political philosophy is to what degree we ought to empower government to provide that security? There are two closely related forms of security: physical security (fear of physical pain, suffering, and death: think terrorism) and economic security (fear from deprivation of material sustenance: think food, clothing, shelter). Hayek also distinguishes between two public policy options the pursuit of limited security and the pursuit of absolute security. The Road to Serfdom is a long argument against the socialist (Marxist) idea that the public policy goal must be the pursuit of absolute economic security, but his arguments apply equally to physical security. His arguments ultimately hinge on his views on the nature of cooperation.

We humans cooperate with one another either by choice or by coercion. Socialists argue that absolute economic security can be provided via large scale cooperation masterminded by a governmentally empowered "central planner." Central planning is by it's very nature coercive, in so far as it requires taking from some individuals and giving to other individual (usually via taxation). Therefore the basic question for social and political philosophy is what can we reasonably expect out of central planning in terms of providing economic and physical security? What kinds human activities, if any, ought to be centrally controlled by government, and what kinds of activities ought to be left to individual planning via non-coercive cooperation and competition?

Recall from my earlier blogs that some libertarians are anarchists. Hayek is not an anarchist, but a minarchist that recognizes that government must play role in human affairs. In fact, anarcho-libertarians often criticise Hayek for suggesting that government ought to provide a basic security "safety net" for citizens. Exactly what this net includes is left unclear. (Think hurricane relief, basic retirement, and basic health care.) What is clear, is that the goal of providing this safety net must be limited security and NOT absolute security. Why? Because when central governments pursue absolute security, the cost is an inevitable loss of individual planning. Why is this the case?

Well it has to do with the fact that human beings, by nature, plan for the future as both individuals and as communities. Now, what exactly is individual planning? In the economic realm its about buying and selling products and services; that is, engaging in cooperative, self-interested, voluntary exchanges with other humans in a free market. In the end, voluntary exchange is inexorably both competitive and cooperative: buyers compete with sellers, sellers compete with other sellers, buyers compete with other buyers etc. Thus individual planning in a capitalist society is moderated by supply and demand. But it's not necessarily "dog eat dog" competition. Buyers and sellers can also cooperate with each other via the formation of corporations, unions, and other non-governmental organizations. (Hint: Walmart, American Medical Association, and the Red Cross)

What is collective planning? Collective planning is when a central authority (a leader) plans for the well being of the whole community. "One size fits all!" In the political realm, this can only be accomplished by employing the coercive power of government to take money from one constituency and give it to another. (Remember Robin Hood?) Hence, the central planner(s) decide "who gets what and when." Collective planning entails replacing (or at least modifying) the act of "buying and selling." So what kinds of goods and services ought to be provided via by free market voluntary exchange and what ought to be provided by government? Military, Police and Fire Departments, Health Care, Retirement? If you believe that government ought to provide most of our economic security, you are a collectivist and a socialist. If you believe all of our needs and wants ought to be centrally distributed by government you are a totalitarian. If you believe most of our material sustence ought to be left to individual voluntary exchange within a free market, you are a individualist and a capitalist. If you believe that government ought to leave everything to the free market with no input from government, you are an anarchist.

In my next blog, I'll explore some of Hayek's specific arguments against collectivism, socialism, and central planning.