Infrasocial Power: Political Dimensions of Human Action [1st ed.] 9783030450809, 9783030450816

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xii
Society and Power (Lorenzo Infantino)....Pages 1-56
The Reshaping of Man and the Birth of Totalitarian Power (Lorenzo Infantino)....Pages 57-113
The Conditions Enabling Individual Choice and the Limitation of Power (Lorenzo Infantino)....Pages 115-179
Pareto and Machiavellianism: The Problem and the Errors (Lorenzo Infantino)....Pages 181-221
Voluntary Cooperation and Unlimited Democracy (Lorenzo Infantino)....Pages 223-255
Back Matter ....Pages 257-287

Citation preview

Infrasocial Power Political Dimensions of Human Action Lorenzo Infantino

Infrasocial Power

Lorenzo Infantino

Infrasocial Power Political Dimensions of Human Action

Lorenzo Infantino Guido Carli Free International University Rome, Italy

ISBN 978-3-030-45080-9    ISBN 978-3-030-45081-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45081-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Pierina Maria Bongiovanni Infantino, in memoriam

Preface

My interest in the problem of power is a long-standing one. In the early 1980s, I had already thought about writing on the subject. But I soon realised that without a theory of society it is not possible to understand what constitutes the political aspect of social interaction. If we wish to “break down” the power of man over man into its component parts and remove it from the realm of indecipherability, it is, therefore, necessary to explain why actors interact and why they come into conflict. Scarcity is a condition which all men share. It drives them to interact or, more accurately, to cooperate. If cooperation were not possible, there would be no society. The latter is in fact the “shorthand” with which we refer to cooperation among men, which is indispensable in order to satisfy our needs and accomplish our designs. We cannot do without cooperative activity. But at the same time we also conflict with others in the attempt to improve our outcome in cooperation and obtain a more advantageous position in society. This means that the condition of scarcity induces men to cooperate, and it also means that scarcity induces them to conflict. It follows that the way in which a given socio-historical situation makes cooperation possible already contains the formula according to which conflict will occur. Consequently, it is always necessary to start from the mechanism by means of which cooperation is articulated. This conviction led me to examine the issue of voluntary cooperation in Individualism in Modern Thought, a book which was first published in Italian in 1995 with the title L’ordine senza piano. But I decided to defer the discussion of the conflictual or political dimension of action to a later date. Thus, when the English-language edition of the book was published, vii

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Andrew I. Cohen commented that I should have immediately proceeded to draw political conclusions from it.1 And Juan Marcos de la Fuente, who translated the book into Spanish, subsequently expressed the same opinion, encouraging me on a number of occasions to give an explicit account of what was, to a large extent, only implied in that book. I found Cohen and Marcos’s comments useful. They provided an input of energy to my work. But I still consider that I was right to defer treating of the problem of power to a later date: because the time which has elapsed since then has allowed me to consolidate my methodological choices and to submit my original project to a new “reading”. All this has made me even more aware of how close a link connects the theory of society and the theory of power. The birth and the early development of the social sciences were nothing but an attempt to explain the possibility of voluntary cooperation, which obviously coincides with the identification of the conditions which prevent or restrict arbitrary power and the use of coercion. The idea that social life may develop through the free coadaptation of human actions is therefore a response to the issue of man’s power over man. It is significant that the law has taught us that general and abstract norms mark off the boundaries between actions, economics has shown us that price makes demand and supply coadapt, sociology has cast light on the “forms” of social exchange and political science has devised instruments to circumscribe the sphere of intervention of rulers. Each of the social sciences has contributed to identifying a habitat which enables voluntary cooperation, a form of activity which limits arbitrary power inside intersubjective relations (through individual freedom of choice) and minimises coercion (by a drastic reduction in the tasks assigned to rulers). In this way, competitive allocation of resources replaces authoritative allocation. The authors most associated with the theory of voluntary cooperation all share the characteristic of having adopted methodological individualism. This method goes hand in hand with the idea of cultural evolutionism. It is mistakenly (and frequently) confused with the psychologism of contractualist or utilitarian conceptions in the narrower sense.2 But it is a grossly inaccurate assimilation, since methodological individualism denies that actors can pre-exist society; it operates with an “ignorant and fallible” individual, who is unable to plan the growth of his own rationality; it sees everything which is strictly human, starting with language, as an outcome of social interaction and not a planned product of the mind. 1 2

 A.I. Cohen (1999), pp. 46–7.  Infantino (1998), pp. 100–30.

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This method applies a process of disaggregation to the social fabric, which makes it possible to (1) isolate the “sequence” in which the phenomenon of superordination and subordination occurs; (2) identify the institutional “instruments” which can be used to limit infrasocial power, that is the power which derives from interindividual relations, and public power, that is the power exerted by rulers over the ruled; (3) discriminate between a social position achieved through engagement with others (and what we are capable of doing for them) from one occupied by means of coercive structures. Consequently, methodological individualism is not just a theory which can be used to show the possibility of voluntary cooperation. It also constitutes the “zero coordinate” by means of which one can gauge any socio-­historical situation, pinpoint instances of “political exploitation” and unmask the deception which lurks inside the totalitarian promise of “saving” man and the world. In short, this book aims at providing a key with which to decipher all the instances of the political dimension of human action. But it does not attempt to provide a history of the various theories of power which have been developed over time, even though they obviously cannot be ignored. With the same openness with which I recognise my debt towards methodological individualism, I must also reveal the reason why this work was originally delayed. I had believed I would have derived immediate benefit from Talcott Parsons’s ambitious work, The Structure of Social Action. But it actually led me astray. For it posited the possibility of a theoretical convergence between the arguments advanced by Alfred Marshall, Émile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto and Max Weber, who belong to incompatible cultural traditions.3 The outcome is a contrived unification, which makes compatibility of actions depend on a mysterious “hierarchy” of values, to which actors passively submit. The fact is that Parsons proceeded without any rigorous methodological map, without the guidance he would have needed. This explains his failure to explore a different and very fruitful convergence, which was staring him in the face: the one between Carl Menger, Georg Simmel and Max Weber.4 As a result, Parsons also deprived himself of the opportunity of making use of further theoretical links and  Op. cit., pp. 131–65.  Despite his declarations of commitment to them, Weber did not always succeed in complying with the rules of methodological individualism. As far as the issue of power is concerned, this will be shown in Chap. 1 of this book. For an extensive discussion of the reasons which led Weber to abandon the methodological collectivism of the German historical school of economics, cf. Infantino (1998), pp. 118–30. 3 4

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the overall body of work produced by the social sciences on the issue of voluntary cooperation. Simmel’s Philosophie des Geldes was clearly written under the influence of Menger. And Weber publicly acknowledged the benefits he had derived from Menger’s “compositive” method. But what is most important is that these authors all went back to the method which had been used by Bernard de Mandeville, David Hume and Adam Smith: the self-same methodological individualism which was applied, among others, by Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville, not to mention Spencer, whose “scientific death” Parsons so cavalierly decreed. That is what there is to say. A preface is not a place where all the content of a book can be foreshadowed in a few sentences. And it is not up to the author to render an evaluation of the results he believes he may have achieved. That is up to the reader to decide. All it is left for me to do is to acknowledge that I would never have succeeded in supplementing, amending and correcting many portions of the text without discussing it with a number of people. I must at least mention Juan Marcos de la Fuente and José Antonio de Aguirre, Enrico Colombatto and Raimondo Cubeddu, Vito Cagli and Luciano Pellicani, Pierpaolo Benigno and Pietro Reichlin, Raffaele De Mucci and Nicola Iannello. My heartfelt thanks to all of them. I have also discussed the book with two young scholars, Adriano Gianturco Gulisano and Rosamaria Bitetti, and I wish to express the hope that their youthful energies may soon produce significant research results. My most sincere and earnest gratitude goes out to Simona Fallocco, who read various “drafts” of the book, never sparing her time or her acute remarks. I also wish to thank the many friends who were kind enough to encourage me in my work. However, I must clearly state that my acknowledgement of so many people’s help in no way transfers any responsibility for the content of the following pages upon them. Rome, Italy February 2020

Lorenzo Infantino

References Cohen A.I. (1999) “Individualism in Modern Thought”, in  Freeman, vol. 49, 12, pp. 46–7. Infantino L. (1998), Individualism in Modern Thought. From Adam Smith to Hayek, London: Routledge.

Contents

1 Society and Power  1 1.1 In Search of a Definition  1 1.2 Simmel: Exchange and Power  5 1.3 Social Cooperation: Against the Homo Oeconomicus 10 1.4 The Political Dimension 18 1.5 Politics in the Narrower Sense 25 1.6 Political Exploitation and Ideology (Adventure and Maximisation) 32 1.7 The Relationship Between Ruled and Rulers: Models Compared 41 Appendices 46 References 52 2 The Reshaping of Man and the Birth of Totalitarian Power 57 2.1 Plato as Theologian and Augustine’s Platonism 57 2.2 Plato and Augustine: The Reshaping of Man and the World 65 2.3 The Totalitarianism of the Platonic-Augustinian Model 73 2.4 The “myth of Sparta”, the “Christian Sparta” and the “Kingdom of God without God” 78 2.5 The Machiavellianism of the Utopian-Totalitarian Project 92 Appendix: The “prophet of doom”105 References109

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3 The Conditions Enabling Individual Choice and the Limitation of Power115 3.1 Limiting Social Power and Limiting Public Power115 3.2 Formal Legal Equality and Secularisation123 3.3 The Restoration of the Isonomic Idea128 3.4 The “privileged point of view on the world” and “manifest truth” Against the Exploration of the Unknown (Psychologism Versus Individualism)140 3.5 The Toppling of the Myth of the Great Legislator145 3.6 Condition of Scarcity, Private Property, Luxury and Social Conflict150 3.7 The “discovery of society”155 3.8 Limitation or Extinction of Public Power?163 3.9 De-politicisation or Conflict Regulation?170 References174 4 Pareto and Machiavellianism: The Problem and the Errors181 4.1 Pareto’s Problem181 4.2 Pareto in the Bottleneck of Utilitarianism184 4.3 Pareto and the Social Cycle189 4.4 Psychologism and Residues192 4.5 The Suppression of Personal Preferences196 4.6 Speculators or Adventurers?203 4.7 The Intermingling of Politics and the Economy: “demagogic plutocracy”206 Appendix: Lasswell in the Trap of Psychologism211 References218 5 Voluntary Cooperation and Unlimited Democracy223 5.1 Exchange Versus Homo Oeconomicus 223 5.2 Power and “social security”229 5.3 The Power of Taxation (and the Power of Issuing Currency)239 5.4 “Unlimited Democracy”246 References252 References257 Index277

CHAPTER 1

Society and Power

1.1   In Search of a Definition Social communication often takes place through the use of words whose meaning we do not fully understand. When we utter them or hear them, we do not exhibit any doubts at all. We display the same mechanical attitude which is elicited by the most obvious and commonplace expressions. But these are words which evoke many and different things within us and which mark the boundary of a “territory” whose identity appears very uncertain to us. “Society” and “power” belong to this category of words. In discussing the former, Ortega y Gasset took to task two of the “founding fathers” of sociology. And he wrote: the works with which Auguste Comte inaugurated sociological science amount to over five thousand densely written pages. Well, from all of them one could not even manage to put together enough lines to fill a single page telling us what Comte understood by society. [And that is not all:] the book in which this science or pseudoscience celebrated its first intellectual triumph  – Spencer’s Principles of Sociology, published from 1876 to 1896  – contains no fewer than two thousand five hundred pages. I do not believe that there are more than fifty lines employed by the author to ask himself what societies – these strange realities which are the subject of this obese publication – are.1 1

 Ortega y Gasset (1957), p. 81.

© The Author(s) 2020 L. Infantino, Infrasocial Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45081-6_1

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Fortunately, not everyone has done as Comte and Spencer did. Ortega was well aware of this; and he himself attempted an ambitious work, which was unluckily never completed, aimed at “deciphering” the social phenomenon.2 The Spanish thinker’s statements about the word “society” can also be extended to “power”. Max Weber, whose definition is recurrently used as an opening to any discussion of the subject, understood power as “the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) from a given source will be obeyed by a given group of persons”.3 It would appear from this passage that the author is exclusively interested in describing the effects of the act of command. And power occupies the scene as something given, as something which cannot be broken down into its generating factors. It is true that Weber immediately afterward added that the probability of seeing the actor’s will achieved “may be based on the most diverse motives of compliance: all the way from simple habituation to the most purely rational calculation of advantage”.4 But the reference to a “compliance” triggered by an action which is “instrumentally rational”, namely by an action in which the person who obeys obtains an immediate advantage in strictly economic terms, appears to have been put there almost accidentally. Weber should not have referred to one type of action, but rather to all intersubjective relations. Although he saw power as the “fundamental concept in social science”,5 Bertrand Russell wrote that “love of power, in the widest sense, is the desire to be able to produce intended effects upon the outer world, whether human or non-human”, which, according to Russell, is a “part of human nature”.6 But to speak of “human nature”, something which needs in turn to be explained, does not help us to go any further. If we move on to consider Guglielmo Ferrero, we will notice that his main concern was to highlight the consequences which ensue from a lack of legitimacy in state power.7 And Bertrand de Jouvenel also focused on this kind of power, setting himself the goal of clarifying its “origin”; but he failed to achieve even that limited goal, because he followed Necker in claiming that within the power of rulers there is “a magical efficacy”, an “unknown ascendancy”.8  See Sorokin’s opinion (1969), p. 347.  Weber (1978), vol. 1, p. 212. 4  Ibid. 5  Russell (1938), p. 4. 6  Op. cit., p. 189. 7  Ferrero (1981). 8  de Jouvenel (1972), p. 46. 2 3

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Nor does one get any further when one considers the domain of prevailing political science. Robert A. Dahl’s definition reveals its full Weberian inspiration. For he states that “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do”.9 He also specified that power is a relationship between actors. But he does not go beyond this.10 And other authors have not strayed from this approach. This applies to Bachrach and Baratz, according to whom it is true that power is exercised when A participates in the making of decisions that affect B […, but] is also exercised when A devotes his energies to creating or reinforcing social and political values and institutional practices that limit the scope of the political process to public consideration of those issues which are comparatively innocuous to A.11

Bachrach and Baratz also argue that nobody “can have power in a vacuum, but only in relation to someone else”.12 And yet they fail to provide an indepth analysis of this very line of inquiry. And when authors like Catlin and Lasswell ventured to analyse what precedes political reality,13 David Easton countered by writing: It might be necessary […] to devote time to such a comprehensive examination of power situations in order to develop a generalized theory of power. This theory would be very helpful to the political scientist, but by the nature of his task he directs his attention not to power in general but to political power.14

Where can we turn to, then? Steven Lukes wrote that what determines the limitation of Weber’s definition is the methodological individualism he adopted.15 But Lukes makes two mistakes. First of all, Weber’s definition is not insufficient because of the individualistic method he used, but because  Dahl (1957), pp. 202–203.  And yet Dahl (op. cit., p. 201) complained at the time that there was only an intuitive notion of power and not a rigorously formulated concept. 11  Bachrach and Baratz (1970), p. 7. Cf. also Bachrach and Baratz (1962, 1963). On the connected topic of “agenda control”, see Fallocco (2006) and the extensive bibliography cited therein. 12  Bachrach and Baratz (1963), p. 633. 13  Catlin will be discussed in this chapter and Lasswell in Chap. 4. 14  Easton (1953), p. 123. 15  Lukes (1976), p. 22. 9

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of the fact that he did not in fact make full use of that method. If he had made use of the theory of action, he would have been in a position to break down “power” into its “component” parts; and he would not have presented it as something given. In the long history of the debate on method, Carl Menger’s work is a genuine milestone. And it clarifies that methodological individualism requires that we “reduce human phenomena to their most original and simplest constitutive factors”, and then “try to investigate the laws by which more complicated human phenomena are formed”.16 Weber, therefore, was not the victim of an excess of individualistic methodology. What happened is the exact opposite. In analysing power, his approach was not individualistic enough. And this can be said of all those authors who make fleeting references to the intersubjective relationship, but then relegate this relationship to the margins of their analysis. Lukes made another error. He blamed methodological individualism for not taking into account the unintended outcomes of human actions.17 But this is an extremely serious misunderstanding because the individualistic method regards unintended consequences as the specific subject of the social sciences.18 16  Menger (1996), p. 31. The inability to trace power back to its constituent elements is the major cause of misunderstanding of the phenomenon. These limits are also found in Parsons (1963). 17  Lukes (1976, p. 22). Lukes obviously “twists” the history of ideas in some points. He rules out that methodological individualism can deal with the unintended consequences of human actions. And he attributes to Marx and Engels the merit of having used that theory. However, it should be stressed that the founders of “scientific socialism” did draw from the methodological individualism of Mandeville and the Scottish moralists (e.g. Hume, Smith, Ferguson and Millar, who will all be discussed in Chap. 3). In terms of their method, therefore, there is no originality in what Marx and Engels did. And there is more to it than that. Having inserted the unplanned outcomes of human action into a finalistic philosophy of history, they clearly misrepresented the meaning of the theory of unintended consequences. One should not confuse unplanned outcomes with “unconditional prophecy” (Popper 1991, pp. 336–46). The theory of unintended consequences is based on “conditional prediction” and presents social relations as an ateleological evolutionary process: this is exactly the opposite of what we find in the Marxian domain. See Infantino (1998, pp. 86–92) and the texts referenced therein. 18  On this point, Hayek (1979, p. 69) wrote:

If social phenomena showed no order except insofar as they were consciously designed, there would indeed be no room for theoretical sciences of society and there would be, as often argued, only problems of psychology. It is only insofar as some sort of order arises as a result of individual action but without being designed by any individual that a problem is raised which demands a theoretical explanation. See also Hayek (1967), pp. 96–105.

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1.2   Simmel: Exchange and Power The individualistic method does not prevent light from being shed on power and its dynamics. By adopting this method, Georg Simmel provided a contribution which stands out for its extreme acuity.19 However, in order to avoid misunderstandings, such as those Lukes fell prey to, it must be emphasised that methodological individualism should not be confused with psychologism. This is a widespread error: it is, in fact, believed that the individualistic method is based on a process in which fully developed individuals deliberately decided to subscribe a social contract. And it is the typical error of jusnaturalism and contractualism. These traditions see everything which is social and political as an adjunct to psychology,20 with the consequence that society turns into an entity which is greater than the sum of its presumed original parts.21 On the contrary, methodological individualism works on the assumption that “man or rather his ancestor

19  Ortega y Gasset (1932, p. 398) stated that Simmel was “an acute mind – a kind of philosophical squirrel  – who never considered his arguments as ends to themselves, but rather used them as platforms upon which to perform his wonderful analytical exercises”. Ortega (1939a, p.  235) had attended Simmel’s lectures in Berlin. As is well known, Simmel had written of himself:

I know that I shall die without spiritual heirs (which is all right). My inheritance is like cash which is shared out among many heirs, each of which invests his portion according to his own nature without concerning himself with the origin of that inheritance. (Simmel 1919–20, p. 121) This applies to all social products, because they become “detached” from their authors and the circumstances which engender them; and they fall into the power of others. Ortega however grasped the link which makes Simmel’s works hang together. In fact, his attack against Durkheimian sociology is conducted with tools which are extensively borrowed from Simmel (Infantino 1990, pp.  134–137). For a comparison between Simmel and Durkheim, the reader is referred to Infantino (1998), pp. 95–99. 20  Cf. extensively Infantino (1998), pp. 43–4. 21  This encourages the idea that there might exist a “point of view of society”, which would also be a “privileged point of view on the world”, a “privileged source of knowledge” (Popper 1991, pp. 3–30). And it would legitimise the imposition of a “common hierarchy” of ends, that is the cancellation of any individual freedom of choice (Hayek 1982, vol. 2, p. 109). This is the reason why Hayek (1949) saw psychologism as “false individualism” and identified “true individualism” with that expressed by the Scottish moralists and by Burke, Tocqueville, Menger, where there is no “privileged point of view on the world” and the social process is ateleological.

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was social prior to being human (considering, for example, that language presupposes society)”.22 Fully in line with this approach, Simmel stated that, “historically, the mind with all its forms and contents is a product of the world”.23 This is equivalent to saying that what made us human is social interaction.24 Therefore, “it is not what we call mind which developed civilization […], but it is rather that mind and civilisation have developed or evolved simultaneously”.25 Human beings do not pre-exist society. From which it follows that it is not “possible to explain historical facts, in the broadest sense of the term, namely the content of culture, the types of economy or the rules of morality by starting out” from the intellect of the individual and “where that fails” resorting immediately to “metaphysical or magical causes”.26 This does away with the “alternative” which pushes us towards “geniuses” or towards “God”27; and, “in the forms of religion, there is no longer any need to distinguish between the inventions of crafty priests and immediate revelation”.28 Accordingly, it is possible to “understand historical phenomena on the basis of mutual conduct”.29 This is why interaction is “socialization”, “one of those relations through which a number of individuals become a social group, and ‘society’ is identical with the sum total of these relations”.30 Simmel’s explanation of power does not stray from this methodological canon. Simmel argued that “every interaction has to be regarded as an exchange”.31 And exchange is a phenomenon whose content is not  Popper (1966), vol. 2, p. 92.  Simmel (1978), p. 112–3. This is a concept which Simmel reiterated a number of times. See also Ortega y Gasset (1957), pp. 174–196. 24  Cf. Infantino (1998) and the bibliography provided therein. 25  Hayek (1988), pp. 56–7. Hayek (1952) devoted an entire work to this issue. 26  Simmel (1908), pp. 2–3. 27  Op. cit., p. 3. 28  Ibid. 29  Ibid. 30  Simmel (1978), p. 175. See also Simmel (1908), p. 9. 31  Simmel (1908), p. 82. Simmel himself (1908, p. 445, note 1) also stated: 22 23

Giving is generally one of the strongest sociological functions there is. If there were not continual giving and taking in society – even outside of exchange – no society would come into being. For giving is in no way a simple action of one subject on another, but it is precisely what is required by the sociological function: it is mutual action.

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exhausted by “the image that economics presents of it”.32 At the bottom of this is the human condition, that is the problem which arises from the “separation” of desire and gratification. For we live outside of the “situation, which is represented in stylised form by the concept of Paradise, in which subject and object, desire and satisfaction” simultaneously coincide.33 The human condition is, therefore, a condition of scarcity. This is what the economic problem consists of. “Objects are not difficult to acquire because they are valuable, but we call those objects valuable that resist our desire to possess them”.34 It follows that economic value “is not an inherent quality of an object, but is established by the expenditure of another object which is given in exchange for it”.35 Consequently, exchange is “the expression […] of the relationship that makes the satisfaction of one person always mutually dependent upon another person”.36 This is how relationships of social cooperation originate.37 And they, in turn, “secrete” supremacy and subordination.38 The action derives from the condition of scarcity. But the social relationship, through which one attempts to tackle the situation of insufficiency, is at the same time a It could be objected here that any intersubjective relationship, even giving, involves social “commerce”. Therefore, there is nothing “outside of exchange”. This may be articulated openly or tacitly, with services which are simultaneous or separated in time, but this is the pattern into which any social relationship fits. And this is something Simmel was very well aware of (1978, p. 82). 32  Simmel (1978), p. 87. 33  Op. cit., p. 75. 34  Op. cit., p. 67. 35  Op. cit., p. 88. This means that value as such is not attributed to an object in its beingfor-itself, but to the satisfaction the object procures for the owner or the user: a use which is achieved solely by forgoing another object, which is ceded in exchange for it. If the issue is raised in terms of cost-opportunity, it should be said that the cost-opportunity of an object is equal to the flow of benefits corresponding to the goods and services which are given up in order to acquire that good. Behind Simmel’s statement one can easily see the traces of the Austrian school of economics. 36  Op. cit., p. 156, where Simmel added that exchange does not occur where there is no mutual relationship, either because one does not want anything from other people, or because one lives on a different plane […] and is able to satisfy any need without any service in return.

37  One can therefore say that “society is originally cooperation among men, who need each other” (Ortega y Gasset 1934, p. 675) 38  The expression was coined by Ortega y Gasset (1930, p. 118), who used it to state that social norms are a “spontaneous secretion” of intersubjective relations.

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relationship of power. In every intersubjective relationship, therefore, one encounters variables which are economic (needs), social (the possibility of satisfying these needs through cooperation) and political (the relations of supremacy and subordination). In trying to shed light on the link between the social element and the political element, Simmel referred to “the relationship of superordination and subordination”.39 And he also specified that “mutual activity” is “sociologically decisive”.40 This is the reason why, when the importance of one party declines to the point where no action deriving from the self as such intervenes, one can not speak of society any more than it is possible between a carpenter and his [work] bench.41

And yet the exclusion of any spontaneity in a relationship of subordination is rarer than is suggested by popular idioms which are full of concepts like ‘coercion’, ‘no choice’ and ‘unconditioned need’. Even in the cruellest and most oppressive relationships of submission there still remains a considerable measure of personal freedom: it is just that we are not aware of it, because demonstrating it in situations of that kind requires sacrifices which we would generally never think of undertaking. The ‘unconditioned’ coercion which the cruellest tyrant exercises upon us is in fact, always conditioned; more specifically, it is conditioned by the fact that we wish to escape the punishment threatened or the other consequences of insubordination. On closer inspection, the relationship of superordination only annuls the freedom of the subordinate in the case of immediate physical violence: otherwise, it usually requires, in order to achieve freedom, a price we are not willing to pay and it may increasingly restrict the scope of external conditions […], but never up to the point of making them disappear completely, except in the case of physical violence.42

 Simmel (1908), p. 106.  Ibid. 41  Op. cit., pp. 101–2. 42  Op. cit., p. 102. Simmel added, 39 40

We are not interested in the moral aspect here […], but rather in the sociological one: that mutual action or, in other words, the action mutually determined and only deriving from the points of personality also subsists in those cases of superordination and subordination and thus still makes it a social form, even where, according to the common way of thinking, the ‘coercion’ exercised by one party deprives the other of any spontaneity and therefore of any genuine ‘action’ which can be one side of a mutual action. (ibid.)

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Simmel further explained that the speaker in front of an audience, the teacher in front of his class seems to be the only one leading […]; and yet whoever finds himself in that situation feels the determining and leading role of the crowd, which apparently restricts itself to receiving from and being led by him. And this does not only apply to cases when people are face to face. All chiefs are also led, in the way that in countless cases the master is the slave of his slaves. ‘I am their chief, I must therefore follow them’, said one of the most important German party leaders, referring to his followers. This is most visible in the case of journalists, who provide content and guidance to the opinions of a silent mass of people, but who in doing this must listen, assemble and imagine what the tendencies of that mass of people really are, what they want to have confirmed and where they want to be led. Whereas apparently it is the public which is subject to his influence, in reality he is also subject to the influence of the public. Here, therefore, behind the appearance of the pure superiority of one element in the face of the passive acquiescence of the other which allows itself to be led, there is concealed a mutual action.43

What we have is an exchange. Nevertheless, this does not exclude the possibility, precisely because it is a relationship of superordination and subordination, that some individuals may act with greater degrees of freedom and others with lesser ones.44 And this is the result of the co-adaptation of mutual spheres of autonomy. In other words, what we can and cannot do is a “phenomenon of correlation, which however loses its meaning when there is no counterpart”.45 The “subject is constrained by others and constrains others”.46 This begs the question of what it is which determines the degrees of freedom and, correlatively, the constraints of each party. As can be seen above, Simmel referred to the “importance” the parties have in the relationship. And this in turn means that what makes a party “important” are the “services” it can provide to the other. It follows that the party which has the greater “urgency” of completing the relationship, the party, that is, which feels the condition of scarcity more intensely, has fewer degrees of freedom and more constraints. 43  Op. cit., p. 104, italics added. On the “bond” between a strong party and a weak party, see also Sennett (1980). 44  See Hayek (1960), pp. 422–3, note 8 and Cranston (1954), p. 5. 45  Simmel (1908), p. 57. 46  Op. cit., p. 58.

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1.3   Social Cooperation: Against the Homo Oeconomicus In order to provide a more penetrating explanation of Simmel’s work, it is useful, at least in relation to some points, to consider the contribution of authors who can in some way be considered in line with his thought.47 As we know, in Simmel the economic issue coincides with the issue of scarcity. In other words, there exists a discrepancy between the needs and desires generated by the inner microcosm of the individual and the possibilities which are offered by the external macrocosm. Simmel, as we have already pointed out, resorted to a biblical image. He stated that the situation in which the economic problem does not arise is the one “represented in stylized form by Paradise”, where “subject and object, desire and satisfaction” are not yet separated.48 It follows that, apart from that situation, no action can be exempt from the condition of scarcity. In the words of Ludwig von Mises, this means that only in a Cockaigne populated by men who are immortal and indifferent to the passage of time, in which every man is always and everywhere perfectly satisfied and fully sated, or in a world in which an improvement in satisfaction and further satiation cannot be attained, would the state of affairs that [… we call] ‘privation’ not exist.49

Therefore, not even when we are playing some kind of game, can we escape the economic condition, because even in that circumstance we need to be sparing with our resources, which are in any case scarce.50 The “cost” of any action at play will need to take into account how much is 47  Apart from Ortega, Simmel’s analysis will mostly be supplemented by resorting to the work of the Austrian school of economics. Fritz Machlup, a pupil of Ludwig von Mises, said confidentially that Simmel’s work was “well known to the Austrian economists, who […] tended to regard it as representing a parallel development of ideas similar to their own” (Laidler and Rowe 1980, pp. 10–11, note 5). 48  See note 34 in this same chapter. 49  Mises (1981b), p. 79. 50  Weber (1949, p. 63–4) had already stated:

Most roughly expressed, the basic element in all those phenomena which we call, in a widest sense, ‘social-economic’ is constituted by the fact that our physical existence and the satisfaction of our most ideal needs are everywhere confronted with the quantitative limits and the qualitative inadequacy of the external means, so that their satisfaction requires painful provision and work, struggle with nature and the association of human beings.

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absorbed by that action and how much we give up, immediately and subsequently, by subtracting those resources from other possible activities. The “proceeds”, on the other hand, come from the regeneration of energy and expectations brought about by the “suspension” of ordinary activities and everyday matters.51 Hence, as far as means are concerned, every action is economic. In current language, the latter term is generally only used to qualify actions undertaken in the world of business. And yet, even when we do not make use of material resources, the scarcity of the time available to us and the limited nature of our personal energies connotate every one of our actions economically.52 We can say that there is an economic dimension, in the broader sense, which characterises each of our actions whatever the ends pursued. And that there is an economic dimension, in the narrower sense, in the relations which are established by means of a price defined in monetary terms.53 This all moves in a different direction from that of the homo oeconomicus of the purely utilitarian tradition: because in that view subjects (1) do not act as a consequence of the condition of scarcity, but as an effect of an impulse to enrich themselves; (2) and are unswervingly directed towards the maximisation of their own advantages. The first point stems directly from the fact that the model of the homo oeconomicus is completely drenched in psychologism. The subject is moved to action by the “desire” to accumulate “wealth” and to employ “that Ortega himself (1939b, p.  342) wrote that living “is locating the means to carry out the project which constitutes us”. And he pointed out that games also “imply a prior dominion over the lower zones of existence, imply” a prior accumulation or saving of “means” (op. cit., p. 351). Ortega also asserted that man needs to “shorten” time, to “earn” it (op. cit., p. 321) and spoke of technique as an “effort to save on effort” (Ibid. p. 333). There is much more here than a chance overlap with the theory of interest and capital formulated by von BöhmBawerk (1959, vol. 2), according to which the primary cause of interest is the fact that, in consideration of their limited life-span, men prefer present goods to future goods and capital derives from the need to adopt indirect production methods, that is methods which are provided with a greater technological content and impose the special type of “effort” which we name saving. 51  Durkheim (1965), p. 426; Freud (1949), pp. 103–4. 52  It is, therefore, not out of place to recall that Freud (1991, p. 184) used the term “economic” in his “metapsychology”, so as specifically to indicate “the point of view” which “endeavours to follow out vicissitudes of amount of excitation and to arrive at least at some relative estimate of their magnitude”. 53  The distinction between “economic in the broader sense” and “economic in the narrower sense” is borrowed from Mises (1981a), pp. 105–9 and (1981b), pp. 156–8.

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wealth in the production of other wealth”.54 Consequently, it is not the human condition which forces the actor to come to terms with means; it is the subject himself who decides to accumulate resources and to make that accumulation his goal. And this is misleading: because final goals are never economic. As Hayek rightly pointed out, economic considerations are merely those by which we reconcile and adjust our different purposes, none of which, in the last resort, are economic (excepting those of the miser or man for whom making money has become an end in itself).55

Only the means through which we try to pursue our final goals are economic. Let us now turn to the second point. If what has been argued above applies, that is those goals are not economic, then the idea of an actor directed towards the maximisation of resources becomes unsustainable because that would determine a conflict with the pursuit of his goals: they would have to be sacrificed and be superseded by the exclusive accumulation of means.56 Maximisation would furthermore imply that the subject, even if not omniscient, would have knowledge of the relevant data.57  Mill (1892), p. 546. The passage had already been set out by Mill (2007), p. 111.  Hayek (1960), p. 35. 56  This is something which Adam Smith (1976b, vol. 1, pp. 116–7) was perfectly aware of. He pointed out that blind accumulation could lead to “dishonourableness”. Bowles and Gintis (1993, p. 84) maintain that in Smith there is a homo economicus who is different from the one that we can find in the pure utilitarian tradition. More correctly, one should say that, as scarcity is the human condition, in Smith there is an individual who obviously acts economically, but pursues goals which are not economic. Since only his means are economic, such individual bears no resemblance to the one who is moved to action by the sole desire to accumulate wealth. It is true: even the pursuit of our ideal goals requires material means. And yet, if accumulation is no longer a means and becomes the priority goal, everything else ends up being downgraded and the actor turns into an “adventurer”, who cares nothing about any obligations or medium- and long-term considerations. Cf. widely Infantino (2010). 57  Hayek (1949), pp. 45–8. Kirzner (1992, p. 127) also wrote: “In the market economy, neither the ranking of ends nor the availability of means can be considered as given to any agent apart from the decisions of other […] individuals”. And also (Ibid. p. 128): 54 55

If we assume that all economizing decisions are indeed ‘correct’, we have necessarily confined ourselves to the fully coordinated, equilibrium world – something imaginable only on the basis of universal mutual omniscience concerning what market participants can and will choose to do. To confine ourselves and our economic analysis to the context of our mutual omniscience is not merely to accept a wildly unrealistic

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Everyone knows everything; it only remains to maximise. But the reality is very different. Actors do not have the knowledge implied in the theory of homo oeconomicus. And if they were to condition exchange on the acquisition of such knowledge, they would condemn themselves to inaction.58 Men can act (as we shall soon see) to satisfy their desire for wealth. But they cooperate on a voluntary basis to satisfy their needs, to fill their insufficiencies. And exchange is the form assumed by voluntary cooperation, which aims at improving the situations of the parties involved.59 Exchange produces “an increase in the absolute sum of perceived values”, because each side “offers for exchange only what is relatively useless to him, and accepts in exchange what is relatively necessary”.60 The “distributive” arrangement which ensues from every exchange generates an increase in the value attributed to the goods available. Even assuming that every action corresponds to a mere moving back and forth of an objectively unalterable quantity of values, the exchange would nevertheless produce […] an intercellular growth of values. The objectively stable sum of values changes through a more useful distribution, effected by exchange into a subjectively larger amount and higher measure of uses experienced.61

assumption; it is to confess that our model of the economizing world is unable to throw light upon any process of adjustment […] in the real world of imperfect knowledge. For an extensive discussion of Kirzner’s work, see Gianturco Gulisano (2012). 58  This explains the severe judgement expressed by Hayek (1949, p. 46), who spoke of the homo oeconomicus as a “skeleton in our cupboard”, that is a skeleton in the cupboard of economists, which they have “exorcised with prayer and fasting”. 59  Economics is a social science because it deals with the cooperation which takes place through monetary exchange. This exchange is a subject also studied by law, which further extends its domain to non-monetary exchange, where it comes into contact with sociology and political science. This will be made clearer in the following pages and in Chap. 3. 60  Simmel (1978), p.  292. This means that, if maximisation is impossible, “pure justice”, which is something “formal and relative”, is also impossible (ibid.). It is significant that Menger (1994, pp. 192–3) had written: “The only quantities of goods that can be called equivalents (in the objective sense of the term) are quantities which, at a given point in time, can be exchanged at will – that is, in such a way that, if one of two quantities of goods is offered, the other can be acquired for it, and vice versa. But equivalents of this sort are nowhere present in human economic life. If goods were equivalents in these sense, there would be no reason, market conditions remaining unchanged, why every exchange should not be capable of reversal”. On the relationship between Menger and Simmel, see Infantino (1998), pp. 106–14. 61  Simmel (1978), p. 292.

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To use a language which is closer to us, one could say that the exchange is a positive-sum game.62 In order to have a positive-sum game, it is necessary for cooperation to be a “peace treaty”,63 acknowledged by the contracting parties as having a character of “supra-personal and normative” objectivity to which they are supposed to submit.64 The “discovery” that men could live together peacefully and bring each other mutual benefit changed the human condition,65 by enlarging and intensifying social cooperation and allowing the breakaway from tribalism. Exchanging means dividing work.66 It was for this reason that Simmel had no hesitation in writing that a very large number of men can constitute a unit only in the presence of a marked division of labour: not only for immediately understandable reasons of economic technique, but also because it alone generates the mutual intertwining and dependency which puts each person in connection with others through countless intermediaries, and without which a very extensive group would be constantly falling to pieces.67

It is clear that each of the actors involved in the exchange bases their possibility of achieving their own aims on their ability to provide services to the Other. Cooperation is therefore fuelled by what we are capable of doing for the benefit of our fellow men. This is why Ego plays up what he offers; and tries to play down what he receives or the ends he can pursue with what he has received. And Alter does the same. The social “reading” of the exchange only highlights the advantage each provides to its counterpart.68 And it is obvious that it should be so. For it would be unthinkable for cooperation to take place against the interests, whether they be 62  Simmel here dwelled on a single “frame” of the action, but exchange fuels a social process which, by channelling means towards those who require them most urgently, increases productivity and product. 63  Simmel (1978), p. 99. 64  Op. cit., p. 97. 65  Hayek (1982), vol. 2, p. 109. Hayek himself (op. cit., p. 108) uses the term “catallaxy” to denote social order based on voluntary cooperation; and he recalls that the Greek verb from which the expression is taken means “to exchange” and also “to admit into the community”, “to change from enemy into friend”. 66  It is worthwhile pointing out that Mises (1981b, p. 42) saw the division of labour as “the starting point of sociology”. 67  Simmel (1908), p. 32. 68  Smith (1976b, vol. 1, p. 26) quite rightly stated that the actor must “show” the others that “it is for their own advantage to do for him what he require for them”.

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material or ideal, of the party one is trying to involve. Nevertheless, there also exists a “reading” of the exchange which is performed privately by each of the contracting parties. And here, instead of the advantage provided to the Other, the main focus is on what the subject has accomplished or intends to accomplish thanks to the transaction. Everyone, therefore, performs a dual reading69 of the exchange: there is a social “justification” of the action based on what we are doing for others; and there is a private explanation, in which the means obtained through the exchange are related to the actor’s own personal designs: this is the ground in which motives for action lie, namely the sphere of individual choice. The “Great Society” is made possible by the fact that the personal motives for exchange are kept outside the “negotiation”. For, if the parties were to agree on the aims they respectively pursue, then the area and volume of cooperation would be drastically reduced. Social regression would ensue.70 There is, therefore, a need for an instrument to facilitate intersubjective relations. This instrument is money, because it makes exchange possible, without forcing each actor to become personally involved in the other actor’s project.71 69  On the dual reading of the action, see Simmel (1908), pp. 27–8. Ortega y Gasset (1957, p. 146) quite correctly referred to a “double entry”. This records, under the proceeds, the goals which are achieved by the actor and, under the costs, what the same actor provides in order to secure the other party’s cooperation. What is obtained is given a higher value than what is ceded. This is a process in which the parties exchange means and, without realising it, further the achievement of the goals of others. It is therefore an unintended cooperation. As Hayek (1982, vol. 2, pp. 109–10) wrote,

we all contribute not only to the satisfaction of needs of which we do not know, but sometimes even to the achievement of ends of which we would disapprove if we knew about them. We cannot help this because we do not know for what purposes the goods or services which we supply to others will be used by them. That we assist in the realisation of other people’s aims without sharing them or even knowing them, and solely in order to achieve our own aims, is the source of strength of the Great Society.

70  Simmel (1978, p. 287) wrote: “mutual aid, which is at first a social necessity and later a moral obligation or simple kindness, does not yet signify the possibility of a proper economy, any more than does it opposite, robbery”. Even more incisively, Mises (1981a, p.  271) stated: “the extent of the division of labour cannot be curtailed without reducing the productivity of labour”. 71  Simmel (1978, p. 303) clearly understood that the “Great Society” is not possible without money. This “makes possible relationships between people, but leaves them personally undisturbed”. As legal scholars say, as long as they are lawful, the motives why parties enter into a transaction are normally irrelevant.

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Here Simmel made us understand that, if exchange is the expression of “the mutual dependency of men”, the same can also be said of money, which in the strictly economic domain expresses and measures this dependency.72 And, if there is no place for exchange where “nothing more is desired from other men”, in the same way there is no function for money to exercise where there is “nothing to exchange”, and where there is nothing to be done for others or to receive from their action.73 Consequently, exchange can occur without the mediation of money, but there cannot be money without exchange. Money is endowed with the “very positive quality that is designated by the negative concept of lack of character”.74 This is why it can be employed in “a variety” of uses that “cannot be foreseen”.75 It is the “means par excellence”.76 Since money “is not related at all to a specific purpose, it acquires a relation to the totality of purposes”: it is “the tool that has the greatest possible number of unpredictable uses and so possesses the maximum value attainable in this respect”.77 It is the “common point of intersection of the sequence of purposes that stretches from every point” of the economic condition to every other point.78 Money “is accepted by everyone from everyone”.79 It is in this way that cooperation can touch on each moment of social life. The introduction of money does not therefore merely replace the direct exchange of goods with a mediated exchange; most importantly, it makes it possible to cooperate with others for aims which do not need to be declared and which consequently do not need to be endorsed by others. No problems of mutual acceptance of pursued purposes exist anymore. There are no services in kind, and there are no personal “servitudes”. Obligations no longer hang over people’s lives. And if people can relieve themselves of their obligations through monetary payment, then the content of their actions is not determined by the “servitudes” they may be subjected to. As Simmel emphasised, servitude and personality become separated. Monetary payment provides release from personal obligation.  See note 36.  Simmel (1978), p. 156. 74  Op. cit., p. 216. 75  Op. cit., p. 212. 76  Ibid. 77  Ibid. 78  Op. cit., p. 223. 79  Ibid. 72 73

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And when this happens, the subject can devote his activity to what he himself chooses.80 It is significant that Simmel himself referred to “money payment as the form most congruent with personal freedom”.81 Just like fashion and other social norms and institutions, money is a product of social interaction, of the co-adaptation of individual actions.82 It was not generated through planning. Carl Menger, whose work was drawn on extensively by Simmel, wrote that media of exchange originally emerged through progressive imitation, became generally used not by way of law or agreement but by way of ‘custom’, that is, through similar actions, corresponding to similar subjective impulses and similar intellectual progress, of individuals living together in society (as the unreflective result of specific individual strivings of the members of society).83

The foregoing discussion helps us to understand that alongside the “social” in the broader sense, which coincides with what is specifically human in our lives,84 there is also a “social” in the narrower sense, which consists of what we must specifically do for others in each act of exchange. These are the services which we must render to our counterparts in order to obtain their cooperation. This means that what we give to others is in our own interest85: because only thus can we deal with the condition of scarcity. Therefore, we always have to give up a present advantage in order to achieve a future, greater one.86 Shirking payment of a price or fulfilment of a social obligation may benefit us in the immediate term. But it prevents us from continuing in our cooperation with the subjects who are damaged 80  Op. cit., p. 285. Simmel (op. cit., pp. 285–6) also wrote: “For this reason, it has been regarded, to some extent, the magna charta of personal freedom in the domain of civil law. Classical Roman law declared that, if payment in kind were refused, then any demand for payment could be met by means of money”. Simmel (op. cit., p. 291) went on to assert that the real ethicisation produced by the process of civilisation lies in the fact that a progressively greater amount of contents of life are “objectified in a transindividual form”. 81  Op. cit., p. 285. 82  Op. cit., p. 224. 83  Menger (2002), p. 33. On Menger’s influence on Simmel, see Laidler and Rowe (1980, pp.  97–105) and Infantino (1998, pp.  106–114). Cf. also Frankel (1977), Aguirre and Infantino (2013). 84  Infantino (1998), pp. 77–82. 85  Mises (1981a, p. 358) rightly asserted that the actor cannot deny the Other “without denying himself”. 86  Op. cit., p. 363.

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by our failure to perform our obligation. This turns into damage for ourselves, which is greater than the original advantage acquired. Accordingly, the realisation of our interest coincides with the fulfilment of our social obligations or the performance of our duty.87 Which is another way of saying that the ultimate values collective life is based on are themselves “obligations” or “conditions” which we subject ourselves to with a view to future advantages.88

1.4   The Political Dimension As has already been mentioned, voluntary cooperation only occurs when it produces advantages for both Ego and Alter. In other words, it is necessary for the game to be positive sum. Nevertheless, a similar result does not prove that the subjects express the same degree of satisfaction. It only indicates that, even if one of the actors believes he has obtained less than their counterpart, he still considers the exchange to be advantageous. The evaluation is performed exclusively by the parties involved. There is no real, omniscient “third person” to whom such an evaluation can be referred. The actors judge on the basis of what they give up and what they expect to achieve with the means they obtain through the exchange. Each subject, that is, acts on the basis of his own notion of the advantages obtained and the costs borne. And each subject identifies the point at which the exchange becomes convenient.89 87  Ibid. Somewhat clumsily, Jhering (1913, p. 103) wrote: “the egoist balances the two possible advantages against each other and sacrifices the advantage of the moment […] in order to secure the […] permanent advantage for the rest of his life”. It follows that conformity with socially defined expectations and/or the morality of an action depend on the capacity of an actor to restrain his immediate impulses and to regulate his conduct. Jhering, here and elsewhere, made the mistake of equating individual choice with egoism; but the actor may be targeting both egoistic and altruistic goals. Jhering’s approach suggests the conclusion that only what is justified collectively is altruistic. And yet, even what is decided collectively can be egoistic or altruistic. On this point, see Popper (1966), vol. 2., pp. 275–8. 88  Infantino (1998), pp. 163–5. 89  By entrusting the decision to evaluate the advantageousness of the action to the subjects involved, exchange theory rules out the possibility of a “third person” being able to impose his judgement over that of the contracting parties. This is why Hayek (1978, p. 58) referred to the “atavism of social justice”, in the sense that “no preconceived scheme of distribution could be effectively devised in a society whose individuals are free, […are] allowed to use their own knowledge for their own purposes”. In other words: “individual moral responsibility for one’s actions is incompatible with the realisation of any such desired overall pattern of distribution” (ibid.).

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Obviously, the ideal for each actor will always be to completely accomplish their own project, while undergoing the lowest cost possible; each contracting party, therefore, would want to find themselves in a position such as to benefit from the greatest coefficient of freedom possible. There are, however, factors which restrict a person’s will to make use of degrees of autonomy. We can start by identifying two factors which are internal to the intersubjective relationship. The first is linked to the circumstance that the actors often entertain relations which may be repeated over time; they can find it convenient to give up some immediate advantages in order to maintain the Other’s willingness to enter into future exchanges. The second factor arises from the fact that the same subjects often establish multiple relationships and, consequently, they avoid exercising their superordination in exchanges in which they are in a more favourable situation, in order to obtain equal treatment in cases in which they might be subjected to the superordination of others. Nevertheless, the greatest constraint on the will of the individual who has most degrees of freedom is the context within which the relationship takes place. Consequently, it is a factor which is external to the relationship itself. And this factor is competition, something which also the individual who benefits from greater autonomy has to deal with. But here we have first to understand what meaning to attach to competition. As a result of the huge tribute paid to jusnaturalism, economists have to a differing extent fuelled the illusion that it is possible to exclude the political dimension from the economic-social relationship. As Simmel acutely noted, natural law “is founded on fictitious individuals, taken in isolation and presumed to be equals”.90 This is a “radical” premise, which was first established in the “economic theory of the physiocrats (according to which free competition is the exact reproduction of the natural order), in the sentimental version which Rousseau gave to it”.91 This originated the notion of perfect competition, where all men enjoy the same degrees of  Simmel (1917), p. 84.  Op. cit., p. 100. See also Weber (1949), pp. 85–6. Although Simmel only referred to Rousseau, his criticism can also be applied to any type of jusnaturalism which shares those assumptions. In Chap. 3 we shall examine Locke’s position. Even though Bentham was radically critical of jusnaturalism, there are two unmistakable sources underpinning economic theory: natural law and utilitarianism (see Pollock 1922, p.  47; Robbins 1965, pp.  46–9; Sabine 1961, pp. 669–79). As is stated in the text, utilitarianism is divided into two traditions: the evolutionary (utilitarianism in the broader sense) and the rationalist (utilitarianism in the narrower sense). 90 91

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freedom and compete on every market and in every field; each actor knows the “relevant data”92; and no one can defend his own “vested interests at the expense of others”.93 The differences between the degrees of freedom the individual actors enjoy are thus erased from interindividual relations.94 Even Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, who was directly exposed to Carl Menger’s evolutionary teaching did for a long time support the possibility of dividing price theory into two parts, the first devoted to “develop the law of the basic phenomenon in its purest form”, and the second to analyse the influence of typical “motives”, “as habit, custom, justice, benevolence, generosity, laziness, pride, national enmities, race prejudice”, as well as the effects produced by certain highly concrete institutions such as monopolies, cartels, coalitions, boycotts, governmental sales taxes, boards of arbitration, boards for the awarding of damages, labor unions and many other organizations.95

Including Simmel among his references,96 Böhm later attempted to correct himself with his last work, where he acknowledged the misleading effect of the heavy burden of jusnaturalism.97 But it was his pupil, Ludwig von Mises, who really pinpointed the flaws in the approach.98 As he formulated the problem, a popular doctrine works with the mistaken concept of ‘free competition’. At first, some writers create an ideal of competition that is free and equal in conditions – like the postulates of natural science – and then they find that the private property order does not at all correspond to this ideal […]. But economy is no prize contest in which the participants compete under the conditions of the rules of the game. If it is to be determined which horse can run a certain distance in the shortest period of time, the conditions should

 See note 57 in this chapter.  Taylor (1967), p. 97. To this one should add the use of the Newtonian concept which makes time fully analogous to space, so that “each point is identical to all others, except for its position” (O’Driscoll and Rizzo 1996, p. 53). 94  Taylor (1967), pp. 100–116. 95  von Böhm-Bawerk (1959), vol. 2, p. 212. 96  Böhm-Bawerk (1962), p. 152. 97  Op. cit., p. 147. 98  Mises (1981b), pp. 11–5. 92 93

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be equal for all horses. However, are we to treat the economy like an efficiency test to determine which applicant under equal conditions can produce at lowest costs?99

Hayek built upon Mises’s position. And he explained that competition is necessary precisely because it is not perfect. It takes place among actors who have different resources, capacities and information available to them.100 And this prevents us from stating that the conditions are equal in any substantial way. The important thing is not the positions of the participants, but the fact that competition leads us to discover “which goods are scarce, or which things are goods”.101 This means that we can also identify, on a moment-by-moment basis, “who will serve us well”.102 As in all actions, we have here the economic element (scarcity), the social element

 Mises (1977), pp. 59–60.  Smith laid great stress on the differences in the amount of material resources (1976b, vol. 2, pp. 711–2), the personal capabilities (op. cit., vol. 1, p. 530 and vol. 2, p. 711) and the information (op. cit., vol. 1, p. 456), which are available to the actors. In Chap. 3 we shall examine at length Smith’s place in the theory of power. The different availability of knowledge is a point which was particularly emphasised by Hayek from Economics and Knowledge onwards. 101  Hayek (1978), p. 181. 102  Hayek (1949), p. 97. Here it might be worthwhile to recall that Hayek’s position stands in opposition to the prevailing view in economic studies. The theory of general economic equilibrium hinges on the assumption of perfect competition; and this in turn rests on the assumption that actors know the “relevant data”. Hayek (1949, p. 46) observed that thus the “assumption of a perfect market […] is just another way of saying that equilibrium exists”. For, “is people know everything, it is obvious that ‘they are in equilibrium’ (ibid.). As Kirzner (1973, pp. 10–11) pointed out, 99

100

no decision made will fail to be carried out, and no opportunity will fail to be exploited. Each market participant will have correctly forecast all the relevant decisions of others; he will have laid his plans fully cognizant of what he will be unable to do in the market, but at the same time fully aware to what he is able to do in the market. And as regards the theory of “monopolistic competition”, Kirzner (1973, p.  114) wrote that, “replacing the old equilibrium theory by a new equilibrium theory”, Chamberlain (1956) prolonged the “theoretical unsatisfactoriness of the old theory”. On the issue, see also Infantino (2008, pp. 253–8) and Colombatto (2011, pp. 26–8).

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(cooperation) and the political variable, of which competition is the dynamic manifestation.103 Precisely because it allows us, on a moment-by-moment basis, to “discover” who can do best, competition is the “only system designed to minimize” the “power exercised by man over man”.104 The more competition there is, the more challenges are made to each actor’s position.105 This prevents those who have greater autonomy from transforming their degrees of freedom into a permanent acquisition or arbitrary power. As we shall see more clearly later, a context in which subsists individual freedom generates competition. And competition enables each actor to locate the counterpart who best satisfies their own requests for cooperation. It will never be possible to erase the differences in autonomy among subjects, but positions can be challenged and arbitrary power can be avoided.

103  As it is well known, Stiglitz has put a lot of energy into dealing with “information asymmetry”. In the light of what has been said in the text, it is precisely the asymmetry of positions, in terms of resources, personal capabilities and knowledge, which makes social cooperation necessary and advantageous. This means that, if all men were equal in resources, capability and knowledge, competition would be useless and wasteful (Hayek 1978, p. 179), because everyone would know everything already. Straining things, Stiglitz (2000, p. 1446) wrote: “Hayek pointed out that the standard competitive equilibrium model could be viewed as solving a particular –and extremely important – information problem, information about scarcity”. And he added that information on scarcity is not the only kind, because “besides information about scarcity, there are many other problems of information that arise in an economy” (op. cit., p. 1447). Stiglitz here failed to notice that the Austrian theory excludes general equilibrium and works with a permanent process of adaptation of individual plans. Hayek stated that, in order to address scarcity, the price information function is indispensable. But he was not referring to the prices of the “standard model of competitive equilibrium”, of which he was extremely critical. It would be enough to read Economics and Knowledge to be clear on this point. As far as the other problems of information are concerned, Hayek was fully aware of them. This is why he saw competition (the real kind and not the imaginary and useless variety) as the only way to mobilise highly dispersed information, which cannot be centralised by any human mind or by groups of men, variously organised to defend their interests. On this subject, see also Colombatto (2011), p. 225, note 1. 104  Hayek (1972), p. 145. 105  Albeit with some clumsy terminology (see also note 87 in this same chapter), Jhering (1913, p. 102) stated:

the egoism of the seller who tries to force too high a price is paralyzed by the egoism of another who prefers rather to sell for a moderate price than not to sell at all, and the egoism of the buyer who offers too little is paralyzed by that of another who offers more: competition is the social adjustment of egoism.

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Not even “the most extreme equality” of material resources can eliminate superordination and subordination because power is not fuelled by a single source.106 Sigmund Freud also realised this. And he wrote: “nature, by endowing individuals with extremely unequal physical attributes and mental capacities, has introduced injustices against which there is no remedy”.107 This means that it is not only the scarcity of material resources but every form of scarcity, which produces situations of social superordination and subordination. It thus becomes possible to take a step forward and realise that private property itself, since it separates what belongs to Ego from what belongs to Alter, is a social institution which originated from the need to regulate the scarcity of material means of life.108 It follows that the abolition of this institution does not change the human condition and therefore does not erase social “hierarchisation”, which also derives from the simultaneous scarcity of other non-material resources. Ortega made a very relevant  Simmel (1917), p. 93.  Freud (1962), p. 60, note 1. On the same page, Freud also stated:

106 107

In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments, certainly a strong, though certainly not the not the strongest; but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence, which are misused by aggressiveness, nor we have altered anything in its nature. Aggressiveness was not created by property.  As Menger (1994, p. 97) rightly stated:

108

human economy and property have a joint economic origin since both have, as the ultimate reason for their existence, the fact that goods exist whose available quantities are smaller than the requirements of men. Property, therefore, like human economy, is not an arbitrary invention but rather the only practically possible solution of the problem […, namely of the problem] imposed upon us by the disparity between requirements for, and available quantities of, all economic goods. Hume (1930, vol. 2, pp. 199–200) had already written: The selfishness of men is animated by the few possessions we have, in proportion to our wants; and it is to restrain this selfishness that men have been obliged to separate themselves from the community, and to distinguish betwixt their own goods and those of others. Therefore, the abolition of private property does nothing to resolve the problem of scarcity of material resources; nay, it deprives social life of the only regulating instrument which is compatible with individual choice. We shall deal extensively with Hume in Chap. 3.

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comment on this point: “It is not only by holding a sword that one aspires to exert” power over others, “but also holding a pen in the same hand. Not only in the trenches, but also in conversation and in all social relations and in all intellectual and industrial output”.109 Hence those who link power to private property alone or, more exactly, to the scarcity of material resources are defining “the general by the particular – an obvious logical fallacy”.110 Therefore, from economic activity in the narrower sense to all actions which can be characterised as games, there is no field in which human beings do not experience some form of “hierarchisation”, due to scarcity of resources. And in this way they enjoy differing degrees of freedom and endure different constraints. Actors are not interchangeable. Each bears an identity, which is formed through a continual “intersection of social circles” and the participation in the life of many organised groups (in areas such as religion, professional activity, leisure), starting from the group in which they are born.111 The path followed, the social tasks performed and the way in which this all takes place give each person their own, utterly personal profile, endowed with a range of possibilities and impossibilities. Each affiliation confers an “added value”.112 It provides, that is, degrees of freedom which are internal and/or external to the group and which are “paid for” by complying with the entrance “conditions” and the performance of a given role (with the obligations which it entails). The overall position of the subject is equivalent to the sum of his relations. And it is exposed to the changes produced by the social process, to which the actor himself participate. The less intense is the competition, the lower is the possibility of comparing the services rendered by an actor, the greater is the chance that “added value” will be achieved through cooptative methods. In other words: if merits do not explain the social positions occupied by subjects, it means that gregaristic cooptation has prevailed over competitive process. By revealing which of us performs best, competition attributes varying levels of personal freedom. But lack of competition, by preventing or distorting such “discovery procedure”, produces arbitrary power.113  Ortega (1916), p. 205.  Dahrendorf (1959), p. 137. 111  Simmel (1908), pp. 305–44. 112  Op. cit., p. 103. Cf. Also Ortega (1927), pp. 486–505. 113  “Discovery procedure” is an expression used by Hayek (1978), pp. 179–90. 109 110

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1.5   Politics in the Narrower Sense Charles E. Merriam spoke of the “family of power”.114 And yet, not having placed interaction as the basis of his analysis, he started out from State power, to which he attributed “brothers” and “sisters”.115 If Merriam had followed the path indicated by Simmel, he would have realised that the list of those “brothers” and “sisters” can never be completed: because the entire social fabric is at the same time a political fabric. Where there is society, there is power. It makes no difference whether it is due to the availability of material resources, to the ability to entertain an audience or to the skill displayed in a given sport. This is why Ortega adopted the term “social power”.116 And it might be more advisable to use the expression “infrasocial power”, because in this way we can better identify its origin and extension. Nevertheless, this is not usual practice, as common speech reserves the word “power” for the superlative of “hierarchisation”, the form generated from the relationship between ruled and rulers, that is exactly the one to which Merriam attributed an unspecified series of “brothers” and “sisters”. Simmel’s theory provides us with a truly comprehensive view of the political phenomenon.117 As a result, it avoids leaving any gap between the political dimension in the broader sense, which is what is produced by the interactions entered into by subjects to achieve their own personal choices, and the political dimension in the narrower sense, which is related to the presence of the State and the bodies and subjects which act in its name. The question is: where is the point of transition from politics in the broader sense to politics in the narrower sense? Simmel drew our attention to the fact that, even in a cooperative relationship, each actor has the “need” to oppose the other and to attempt to

 Merriam (1934), p. 47.  Ibid. Bobbio (1985, pp. 72–5) also spoke of forms of power. And he made a distinction between political, economic and ideological power, including religious power within the latter category. And yet, unless they are the outcome of an underlying theory, classifications have little or no explanatory capability. 116  Ortega (1927). 117  Cf. De Mucci (1999), pp. 15–16. 114 115

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increase the degrees of his own autonomy.118 And, in the light of what has already been said, this is completely understandable. In order to obtain the means which are necessary for the achievement of their plans, each individual must cooperate with others. Nevertheless, since cooperation allocates constraints and coefficients of freedom, each person attempts to defend or improve his own social position. Cooperation generates power and, accordingly, also generates conflict. Just now we have asserted that, where there is society, there is power. We can now add that where there is society, there is power and (at the same time) there is conflict. Conflict is always a characteristic of society. A completely centripetal and harmonious group, a simple ‘union’ that is, is not only empirically unreal, but would be devoid of any kind of life process: the society of saints, which Dante Alighieri contemplates in the rose of Paradise, might take on this shape, but it is also excluded from any change and from any development, while the sacred assembly of Fathers of the Church in Raphael’s “Disputation” already appears, if not as a real clash, as an appreciable diversity of states of mind and directions of thought […] society needs some kind of quantitative relationship between harmony and disharmony, between association and competition, between favour and disfavour, in order to reach a given configuration. But these differences are in no way simple, passive sociological elements, or negative demands, so that definitive, real society only comes in existence as a result of the other positive social forces and only as far as the former do not prevent it. This currently widespread notion is completely superficial.119 118  Simmel (1908), pp. 108–10. Simmel went as far as to apply his theoretical scheme to “coquetry”. In this connection, he wrote:

By alternating between yes and no, effusion and reserve, or behaving so as to make both noticeable at the same time, a woman shrinks from each of the two terms and manipulates them as a means behind which she keeps her personality sovereign […]. The power of a woman over yes and no is something which exists prior to a decision: as soon as the decision is taken, such power is in any case terminated. Coquetry is thus a way of exercising this power in a lasting manner. (Simmel 1919, p. 104)

119  Simmel (1908), p. 187. Having had Simmel’s theory as part of his training, Ortega y Gasset (1957, p. 189) did not hesitate to write that the lasting intertwining of interindividual actions “can be adequately qualified only if we call it struggle”. And he added (op. cit., p. 268): “So-called society is never what the name promises. It is always at the same time, to some extent, dis-society, repulsion between individuals. Since, on the other hand, it claims it is the opposite, we need to reach the radical conviction that society is by its nature sick and deficient”, Ortega dealt with the problem extensively (1941, pp. 57–63). As is well known,

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In order to produce the real configuration of society […], concord, harmony and cooperation, which are considered to be socialising forces, must be broken up by separation, competition and repulsion.120

However, it is necessary to avoid social cooperation from being impaired by internal conflicts and external aggression. This is the reason why “quantitative development” of the group “requires a body which is specially appointed for that purpose, based on the division of labour”.121 For, as soon as it needs to “begin to operate for some specific aim”, an extended collection of people suffers “from an enormous ponderosity”.122 “In order for the group to act”, it must, “first of all, come together”.123 “The difficulty and the slowness, the frequent impossibility of assembling it in its entirety, prevent countless measures and delay others until it is too late”.124 And that is not all there is to it. Even admitting that this problem can be overcome, there remains the fact that “any action of a mass of a certain size drags with it a huge dead weight of doubts, concerns and diverging interests”.125 A special social body which is “free, in that it is exclusively in his classic work on social conflict, Coser (1956) was much indebted to Simmel and Ortega. It is also worth pointing out that, in examining the reasons why conflict can lead to crisis, Ortega assimilated Tocqueville’s lesson (see Chap. 3, section 9, and Infantino 2008, pp. 130–131). 120  Simmel (1908), p. 262. On the fact that social life takes place simultaneously through cooperation and conflict, see also P.S. Cohen (1971, pp. 20–1) and Lenski (1966, pp. 17–22), who dwells on the disagreement between “functionalists” and conflict theorists. In the area of what he calls the “emerging synthesis”, Lenski also places Weber, Pareto, Sorokin, Ossowski and van den Berghe. It is worth repeating the following statement of his (op. cit., pp. 16–7): Conflict theorists, as their name suggests, see social inequality as arising out of the struggle for valued goods and services in short supply. Where the functionalists emphasize the common interests shared by the members of a society, conflict theorists emphasize the interests which divide. Where functionalists stress the common advantages which accrue from social relationships, conflict theorists emphasize the element of domination and exploitation. Where functionalists emphasize consensus as the basis of social unity, conflicts theorists emphasize coercion. Where functionalists see human societies as social systems, conflict theorists see them as stages on which struggles for power take place.

 Simmel (1908), p. 410, note 1. See also Ortega (1957), p. 269.  Simmel (1908), p. 410. 123  Ibid. 124  Ibid. 125  Ibid. 121 122

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directed towards this sole purpose” and which comprises a “relatively small number of persons”, may “accomplish this aim with greater suppleness and precision”.126 It is true: “the self-conservation of the group will depend […] on the fact that the body thus differentiated is not endowed with absolute autonomy. What should continue to operate is the idea (although not always the conscious idea) that it is just an embodied abstraction of the mutual actions” which are exercised inside the group and which “in the final analysis remain the foundation the latent energy”; the body is “solely a particularly practical form, an empowerment and an enrichment”.127 In other words, “the body should not forget that its independence must only be in the service of its dependence, that its character of autonomous purpose is only a means”.128 This does not prevent it from taking up a superordinate position, to which individuals must subject themselves.129 Following Simmel’s very line of reasoning, Ortega adopted the expression “public power” to indicate the differentiated subject which is the beneficiary of this relationship of superordination.130 And in any case, whatever one wishes to call it, what we are dealing with is state organisation, which has the task of producing (internal and external) security. Therefore, what happens is that, in order to “live better”, we make use of “a tool, the State”131. In this way a disproportion is created between the force which is available to individual actors or social groups and the force available to those who act in the name of the state organisation and its bodies. The rules produced by free interaction are “weak” rules, which are subject to continual change because of the social process.132 The State, on the other hand, acts through rules “which are terribly imperative”133; they are “strong and rigid” rules, which explicitly establish a relationship of superordination and subordination.134 The production of security represents a “cost” borne by the ruled through a self-limitation of their action and their conferral upon rulers of significant degrees of freedom. In the implementation of this, the rulers  Ibid.  Op. cit., p. 426. 128  Ibid. 129  Op. cit., p. 413. 130  Ortega (1957), p. 269. Cf. also Ortega (1960), pp. 101–119. 131  Ortega (1930), p. 226. 132  Ortega (1957), p. 228. 133  Ortega (1935), p. 219. 134  Ortega (1957), p. 228. 126 127

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themselves and they alone are allowed the use of force, which thus is constituted as a monopoly of legitimate force. It is an exchange: for the state organisation is established in order to protect cooperation and the peace treaty on which cooperation itself is based. This is equivalent to saying that public power has the task of ensuring the conditions whereby the social solution to the economic problem becomes possible. Scarcity, which is a condition experienced by all, is in this way tackled by means of an autonomous cooperative choice on the part of social actors, in a context where the force of the State is only invoked to prevent the breach of peace by internal and external subjects. This restricts the scope of action of State organisation, which consequently is only responsible for tasks of a residual nature. But this has not always been the case. And it is not always the case. If one takes account of the cultural “constellation” inside which it originated, Simmel’s view of social cooperation and public power reveals its close kinship to the work of Herbert Spencer and his distinction between “industrial society” and “militant society”.135 And this shows that the limitation of public power is the outcome of a far-reaching historico-­ institutional transformation: because State organisation was not originally established to ensure voluntary cooperation, but to solve the economic problem through violence. Voluntary cooperation came later. And it gave that “old form” of organisation a content which was different and, most importantly, very circumscribed.136 Simmel himself recognised that, even long after the time of Homer, piracy continued to be regarded, in the backward agricultural areas of Greece, as a legitimate business and some primitive people consider violent robbery nobler than honest payment.137

Simmel also pointed out “the disdain of trade by self-willed aristocratic individuals”.138 Consequently, State “grew from the subjugation of one

 Spencer (1896), vol. 2, pp. 568–602.  Op. cit., vol. 1, p. 655. See also Oppenheimer (1975), p. 9. 137  Simmel (1978), p. 97. 138  Ibid. Cicero (B) considered commercial activities to be base and sordid and suggests that “there is nothing more honourable and noble than to be indifferent to money” (op. cit., I, 20, 68). 135 136

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group of men by another”.139 This is the reason why the first page of the history of public power is made up of “robbery and killing […], endless combats broken neither by peace nor by armistice. It is marked by killing of men, carrying away of children and women, looting of herds and burning of dwellings”.140 In other words, tackling the problem of scarcity by resorting to violence meant using the most extreme political instrument available, which confers power to men through the elimination or the total subjugation of others.141 There was no alternative in fact, for there was a prevailing conviction that the quantity of resources available was given once and for all and that intersubjective relationships produced a zerosum result: any advantages acquired by one of the parties were seen as the result of the disadvantages inflicted on the other party. Hence the need for tribal closure.142 Hence also militarisation, armies and, subsequently,

139  Oppenheimer (1975), p. 9. Oppenheimer (op. cit., p. 10) did in any case recognise his indebtedness to Gumplowicz (1902). Nock (1935), who made a distinction between social power and state power, also found himself in agreement with Spencer and Oppenheimer’s line of reasoning. Conversely, Mises (1966, p. 649) ended up asserting that

it is very inexpedient to employ the same term ‘power’ in dealing with a firm’s ability to supply the consumers with automobiles, shoes, or margarine better than others do and in referring to the strength of a government’s armed forces to rush any resistance. And he added that it was clear that “ownership of material factors of production as well entrepreneurial or technological skill to not – in the market economy – bestow power in the coercive sense”. Obviously, social power and public power cannot be placed on the same level. But it cannot be denied that, in their interaction, actors always enjoy differing degrees of freedom. Mises himself acknowledged this when he rejected the idea of perfect competition and its jusnaturalist postulates (see previous note 89 and the text set out above). To disregard the different degrees of freedom with which subjects interact means preventing oneself from understanding the problem of social conflict and the reason why public power originated. Mises’s position is later to be found echoed in Salin (2000, pp. 169–70), who believes that, “if there is no constraint, there is no power”. In this way the whole territory of “social power” is “blacked out”. And conflict and what ensues from it remains unexplained and unexplainable. 140  Oppenheimer (1975), p. 23. See also Ortega (1964) pp. 607–623. 141  Spencer (1896, vol. 2, p. 473) stressed that “the primitive military gathering is also the primitive political gathering” 142  Op. cit., p. 243.

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bureaucracy.143 Obviously, violence has lying and deception as its allies, because these can also be used to achieve the priority goal of impoverishing the others. As Jhering rightly wrote, “it was not the truth which was original, but falsehood”.144 Truth requires the nourishment of an entirely different habitat.145 Thus, the State was established to provide a political solution to the economic problem, that is, it originated as a means of “political exploitation”.146 It goes without saying that “bandits” and “murderers” must at least avoid robbing and killing each other. This means, as Ortega emphasised, that “even those who set out to rule with ‘janissaries’ are dependent on these people’s opinion”.147 Without their armed support and their agreement with the distribution of resources, there cannot be a victorious force. Nevertheless, for a military chief to become a political chief as well, a more extensive legitimation is required. Fustel de Coulanges  Spencer (op. cit., p. 339) quite rightly stated:

143

the process of militant organization is a process of regimentation, which, primarily taking place in the army, secondarily affects the whole community […] subordination is extended to it […]. Labour is carried on under coercion; and supervision spreads everywhere. (Ibid.) Regimentation leads to what Mumford (1962, p. 189) called a “megamachine”, a structure “composed of living, but rigid, human parts, each assigned to his special office, role, and task”. 144  von Jhering (1886), p. 246. 145  Ibid. 146  Lehning (1970, p. 48) remarked: “State power is not the consequence of class antagonisms, but is itself their cause”. Clastres (1989, p. 198) also wrote: “Society’s major division, the division that is the basis for all the others, […is] the great political cleavage between those who hold the force […] and those subject to that force”. Nevertheless, contrary to Clastres’s opinion, there are no societies or forms of social life where the political factor is absent: for a position sharing some of Clastres’s views, see Pellicani (2012). As far as the State is concerned, even though in a non-specific form, its functions are also carried out inside the small group. Among the countless studies of an anthropological nature, Ortega (1957, p. 267) quoted those of Felix Speiser (1922). Cf. also Ortega (1960), pp. 101–119. In Chap. 3 (section 8), we shall discuss more widely the idea of offering the production of security in a competitive system. 147  Ortega (1930), p. 233. Ortega’s idea was obviously inspired by the following passage by Hume (1903, p. 29): “The soldan of Egypt, or the emperor of Rome, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts against their sentiments and inclination. But he must, at least, have led his mamalukes or praetorian bands, like men, by their opinion”. The support of “followers” was judged a “trite observation” by Smith (1976a, p. 86).

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wrote: “the ancient kings of Greece and Italy were priests”.148 The same bond was highlighted effectively by Spencer, who quite correctly stated that in those kinds of societies “the secular and the sacred are but little distinguished”.149 And Ortega pointed out that “every primitive command has a ‘sacred’ nature”, because it is justified through “religion”.150 Victorious force and conquered power are therefore considered a “gift” of God, the outcome of the special bond kept by the divinities with individuals, who thus become “unique beings” and “heroic natures”.151 Even though the military and political chief needs the support of his followers, what legitimises him more extensively is a belief which stands beyond proof or refusal, the belief that power is a product of the will or the consent of the gods.152

1.6   Political Exploitation and Ideology (Adventure and Maximisation) The success of exchange reversed the condition of “political exploitation” in which men had lived. With it, there arises the idea that intersubjective relations are a positive sum. And the solution of the problem of scarcity is entrusted to social cooperation. Against internal and external initiatives, the task of the State is to ensure the “peace treaty” which provides the habitat in which exchanges can take place; and it becomes necessary to establish all those activities which facilitate voluntary cooperation. It is obvious that public power must have a military and bureaucratic organisation it can rely on. But it loses its original goals and acquires a new set of purposes, because the formula of political legitimation is itself turned on its head. As Spencer remarked,

 Fustel de Coulanges (1877), p. 232.  Spencer (1896), vol. 2, p. 722. 150  Ortega (1930), p. 233. 151  Ortega (1914), p. 375. 152  Ortega (1960, pp. 107–108) wrote “And the rex (king) is the person who governs (rector), because he leads or governs [Latin Regere] the religious rites”; and also: “The original, prototypical legitimacy, the only complete and definite one, was among almost all known peoples, that of king by grace of God” (ibid.). 148 149

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in place of the doctrine that the duty of obedience to governing agent is unqualified, there arises the doctrine that the will of citizens is supreme and the governing agent exists merely to carry out their will.153

It follows that the power of rulers can no longer be based on a privileged relationship with the deity and the support of their followers, but must be based on public opinion.154 The formula of authority is turned upside down; it becomes a bottom-up process.155 The area of individual choice is infinitely extended. And the greatest constraints are on political power, which performs a complementary function to (voluntary) social cooperation. There are still problems. We know that what underpins the legitimacy of public power is the approval of the ruled, which makes the power of rulers “consented” and therefore “authoritative”.156 Nevertheless, it is not easy to assess the work of those who rule. When the relationship is between individual actors, the parties can easily check what they receive. The relationship is in fact based on their evaluation of the goods and services exchanged. And it is this evaluation which determines the continuation or the suspension of intersubjective “commerce”. The social “justification” attributed by each actor to his own performance is thus subjected to continuous scrutiny and a dissatisfied party can promptly withdraw from the relationship. But exchanges between rulers and ruled cannot be so easily monitored or revoked. For it is often necessary to judge promised services, which of course will only be provided at some future time. And often, 153 154

 Spencer (1896, vol. 1), p. 568.  Ortega (1930), p. 232. Ortega (op. cit., p. 233) also clarified that

sometimes public opinion does not exist. There is a society divided into diverging groups, which do not have the force to establish ‘command’ […] the vacuum left by the absent force of public opinion is filled [then] by brute force […] the latter comes to the fore as a substitute of the former. See also Russell (1938, pp. 31–32), who spoke of “naked power”. 155  This all suggests that Weber’s (1978, vol. 1, p. 54) well-known definition of the State, as the “monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order”, is overdetermined. It can refer to situations in which the economic problem is solved politically and to contexts in which the same problem is dealt which through social cooperation. 156  For a treatment of the concept of “authority” from the specific standpoint of political science, the reader is referred to Stoppino (2001, pp. 99–131) and the extensive bibliography contained therein.

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when provided simultaneously, these services cannot be subjected to circumstantiated scrutiny; either because the necessary information is unavailable or because the cost of acquiring it is too high. Resort is then made to the belief or set of beliefs, commonly referred to as ideology. The pervasiveness of ideological belief to a large extent substitutes the lack of effective critical scrutiny.157 It should also be added that “protest” and “defection” are not easily activated.158 The holders of public power have available to them the State organisation, which contains a coercive apparatus. Rulers provide their services in the form of a monopoly and are bolstered by the monopoly of “consented” force. Consequently, there exists permanent tension. Social (voluntary) cooperation turns the State into its complement. As we have seen, in Simmel’s exchange theory, public power is a “differentiated body”, which should not possess “absolute autonomy” and which therefore should not be elevated to the rank of an independent variable.159 And yet, as the presence of State power expands, the scrutiny of the ruled is made more difficult by the growing complexity of the situation. This opens the way to the reassertion of “political exploitation”, which is readily consented to by subjects deriving advantage from that phenomenon. The social “justification” which legitimates the ruling function is thus open to becoming a mere “cover” for an activity which is no longer a means in the service of voluntary cooperation. And, if this occurs, “society must live for the State; man for the government machine”.160 The State organisation recovers its original function of means of exploitation of a majority by a minority. Hence the rise of “politics of power”, the quest for power for power’s sake. The exchange between rulers and a large part of society ceases to exist. The ruled “pay” for the provision of specific services with their consent; and 157  It may be useful here to recall the position expressed by Downs (1957, p. 98), according to whom the complexity of the situation leads those who are ruled to judge on the basis of ideologies, which are precisely belief systems. Boudon and Bourricaud (1982, p.  299) quite rightly pointed out that Downs’s theory, while starting out from the intent of explaining the consent of the ruled in “rational” terms, paradoxically leads to the conclusion that consent is based on ideological assessments. Socrates (Plato D, 454e, 455a) had already called attention to judgements formulated on the basis of mere beliefs, which for this reason are devoid of knowledge. On the basis of the points made in the text, the problem of ideology will be further explored in the next section. 158  I am using the terms “protest” and “defection”, with the meaning of Hirschman’s (1982) “exit” and “voice” respectively. 159  See note 116 in this chapter. 160  Ortega (1930), p. 225.

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the rulers, to varying extents, evade providing those services or simulate them: they use the degrees of freedom which they enjoy for the exclusive expansion of their power and that of their “followers” and their adjacent groups. “The State and the State offices” are treated “as pure institutions for the provision” of spoils,161 an activity in which those holding roles of authority avail themselves, above all, of the resources which accrue from taxation and the issue of money. How is it possible to find a way out of this situation? It is not necessary for those managing public power to waive their own motivations, that is, to become depersonalised. This is beside the point. If however the motivations of the rulers oust or marginalise the goals of the ruled and evade the obligations of the exchange, the consequence is the reappearance of the relationship of “political exploitation”. Coercion and deception can be combined in various ways. Socrates had already stated that “tyrants and kings and potentates and public men” are “the authors of the greatest and most impious crimes, because they have the power”.162 It is the dominion of what we often call Machiavellianism. In other words, what happens is that, as soon as the degrees of liberty their action enjoys expand, rulers break the norms which they proclaim to observe and which the ruled cannot avoid. To go back to Simmel, this marks the triumph of adventure: work […] has an organic relation to the world. In a conscious fashion, it develops the world’s forces and materials toward their culmination in the human purpose, whereas in adventure we have a nonorganic relation to the world. Adventure has the gesture of the conqueror, the quick seizure of opportunity, regardless of whether the portion we carve out is harmonious or disharmonious with us, with the world, or with the relation between us and the world.163

What counts is having one’s will.164 We have here an attack against the “peace treaty”, where “exchange and regulated exchange” are the same thing.165 Even when they only

 Weber (1946), p. 87.  Plato (D), 525d. 163  Simmel (1971), p. 193. 164  Ortega (1914), p. 389. 165  Simmel (1978), p. 99. 161 162

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resort to deception, “heroes” never rule out of the use of force.166 The adventurer takes what is most “uncertain and incalculable” as the basis for his action.167 He has the “sleepwalking certainty”, which is the most extreme form of self-referentiality.168 He only sees what he wants to achieve immediately. His only goal is to maximise his advantages, since he considers the context around him to be materially inert.169 The goals which “legitimate” superordination vanish from the actions of the rulers. They place themselves in the exclusive service of their own personal interests and of those of their followers. It is no coincidence that Max Weber wrote that, in political activity in the narrower sense, the sin against the lofty spirit of vocation […] begins when [… the] striving for power ceases to be objective and becomes purely personal self-intoxication, instead of exclusively entering the service of the cause.170

This is the “demonic face of power”.171 Can we free ourselves from ideological judgements? In order to grasp how extensive the presence of ideology is, we need to consider the suggestion made by Ortega y Gasset, who saw man as an ideological animal. As he wrote, “Our life, anybody’s life, necessarily involves an interpretation of itself, the shaping of ideas about ourselves and about everything else”.172 Ortega further explained: finding ourselves alive, we do not only find ourselves in the midst of things, but also in the midst of men; not only on earth, but also in society. And 166  “Heroes” wish to cancel the “peace treaty”, which is the condition for exchange. This is the clash between “merchants” and “heroes” which Sombart (1915) dwelt on, siding with the “heroes”. 167  Simmel (1971), p. 195. 168  Ibid. 169  Following Hayek, we stated (section 3) that the goals of actors are not economic, “excepting those of the miser or the man for whom making money has become an end in itself”. Since the goal of the adventurer is to achieve maximum advantages for himself in the immediate term, without taking into account anybody else’s expectations or what might happen at a later stage, he tends to make the accumulation of means the purpose of his action. It is significant that Weber (1950, p. 20) made a distinction between the “capitalistic adventurer”, whose action is directed to booty and the pursuit of profit obtained through violence, and the capitalistic entrepreneur. We will analyse this theme more extensively in Chap. 4. 170  Weber (1946), p. 116. 171  Vedi Ritter (1948). 172  Ortega (1933), p. 25.

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those men, that society which we have happened to join already possess an interpretation of life, a repertory of ideas on the universe and things they are convinced of.173

Hence “every human life starts out from some radical convictions on what the world is and the place which man occupies within it”.174 Therefore, we cannot do without ideology.175 And there is very little point in considering it something negative.176 It defines our life. It is a fact which we cannot avoid and which, even when we are not aware of it, produces significant social consequences. This applies to ideology in the broader sense. And it also applies to ideology in the narrower sense, that is none other than the formula which justify the position of rulers and which legitimates public power. Gaetano Mosca used the term “political formula” to indicate ideology in the narrower sense. And as a reply to Spencer, who had seen the divine right of kings as “the great political superstition of the past” and the right of Parliaments “the great political superstition of the present”,177 he wrote:  Ibid.  Op. cit., p. 26. 175  Shils (1958) spoke of the decline of “ideological politics” and the rise of “civil politics”. Bell (1960) and Lipset (1960) referred to the end or the decline of strong or totalising ideologies. These are positions which have at times led to the simplistic belief that ideology could become extinct. As Boudon and Bourricaud (1982, pp. 301–2) however wrote, 173 174

even in periods of ‘consent’, periods in which intellectuals and prophets tend to be ousted by experts, political action and decision are […] great consumers of ideology. The fact that ideology is less visible does not mean it is not present.

 Bobbio (1971, p. 114) quite rightly pointed out that

176

in common language, as well as in scientific language, the term ‘ideology’ is by now used more widely in a neutral sense too […] to indicate a system of beliefs and values which is used in political struggle in order to influence the behaviour of the masses and steer them in one direction rather than another, to garner their consent, and generally to found the legitimacy of power. As is well known, the term “ideology” was coined by Destutt de Tracy. For a history of the concept, see Mongardini (1969) and the bibliography provided therein. 177  Spencer (1881), p. 78. With reference to this, Pareto (1935, vol. 1, section 112, p. 59) quite rightly wrote: “Though Spencer asserts the relative nature of all knowledge, he still speaks of the relation of knowledge to absolute reality”.

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It is […] necessary to see whether a society can hold together without one of these ‘great superstition’ – whether a universal illusion is not a social force that contributes powerfully to consolidating political organization and unifying people and even whole civilizations.178

According to Mosca, political formulas are not “mere quackeries aptly invented to trick the masses into obedience. Anyone who viewed them in that light would fall into a grave error”.179 They “answer a real need in man’s social nature”.180 Mosca’s statements here say more than it might appear. First of all, they make it clear that ideologies produce political, economic and social consequences. To say that they are “superstitions” would mean to preclude any understanding of their functions and fail to realise that what we should really be judging are the outcomes which they generate. Hume explained in exemplary fashion that values cannot be declared true or false,181 because we do not possess a science of good and evil. Therefore, we must focus our  Mosca (1939), p. 71.  Ibid. It is also worth recalling that Pareto (1935, vol. 1, p. 39, section 72, p. 38), while moving on the same positivist terrain as Spencer, wrote, 178 179

we differ radically from many people following courses similar to ours […]. Correlation of the social utility of a theory with its experimental truth is […] one of those a priori principles, which we reject. And also (op. cit., section 73): I ask the reader to bear in mind […] that, when I call a doctrine absurd, in no sense whatever do I mean to imply that it is detrimental to society: on the contrary, it may be very beneficial. Conversely, when I assert that a theory is beneficial to society, in no wise do I mean to imply that it is experimental truth. In order to accept the distinction suggested by Pareto, it is however necessary to point out that there is no “conclusive verification” and that what he defined as “experimental truth” is such only temporarily, as far as is known. One must, that is, accept the fallibility of science. As Weber (1946, p. 138) wrote, “every scientific ‘fulfillment’ raises new ‘questions’; it asks to be ‘surpassed’ and outdated”, so that “whoever wishes to serve science has to resign himself to this fact”. 180  Mosca (1939), p. 71. 181  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 167. We will address this more widely in Chap. 3. Following the Paretian distinction between the truth and the utility of a doctrine, Geiger (1953, p. 66) branded as ideological “those propositions which, in their linguistic form and in their overt meaning, appear to be expressions [that are] theoretical, but which in actual fact are atheoretical”. See also Bergmann (1954), Topitsch (1966), Sartori (1969). One must however recall what was written on the issue by Weber (1946, p. 153): “No science is absolutely free

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critical capabilities on the effects produced by the complete or partial institutionalisation of certain values.182 The reference to Mosca also corroborates another point in our discussion. As we have mentioned, he asserted that the “political formula” answers “a real need in man’s social nature”. This is an embryo of the explanation which, on the basis of exchange theory, has been advanced here; an explanation which moves precisely from “man’s social nature”. Because, by resorting to the mechanism of social cooperation, we have seen that an actor has to provide, or promise he will provide, services to a counterpart. In other words, he “justifies” his claim to receive by means of what he gives or promises to give. Each person tries to “portray” the services he provides to the Other in the best light possible.183 And in the

from presuppositions, and no science can prove its fundamental value to the man who rejects these presuppositions”. And again (Weber 1949, p. 111): The ‘objectivity’ of the social sciences depends […] on the fact that the empirical data are always related to those evaluative ideas which alone make them worth knowing and the significance of the empirical data is derived from the evaluative ideas. But these data can never become the foundation for the empirically impossible proof of the validity of the evaluative ideas. Referring to an even vaster area, Popper (1992, p. 16) stated: it cannot be denied that along with metaphysical ideas which have obstructed the advance of science there have been others – such as speculative atomism – which have aided it. And looking at the matter from the psychological angle, I am inclined to think that scientific discovery is impossible without faith in ideas which are of a purely speculative kind, and sometimes even quite hazy; a faith which is completely unwarranted from the point of view of science, and which, to that extent, is metaphysical.

 Weber (1949, p. 53) argued:

182

when the possibility of attaining a proposed end appears to exist, we can determine (naturally within the limits of our existing knowledge) the consequences which the application of the means to be used will produce in addition to the eventual attainment of the proposed end, as a result of the interdependence of all events. We can then provide the acting person with the ability to weigh and compare the undesirable as over against the desirable consequences of his action.

183  It is no accident that, in referring to amorous relationships, Plato (C, 203e) observed that a lover becomes “enchanter, sorcerer and sophist”.

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specifically political area, this “justification” is the general formula regulating the relationship between rulers and ruled. If this is so, what we have compactly termed “political exploitation” turns out to cover an assortment of phenomena of goal-displacement or “substitution of ends”, where the vast majority of society is placed in the service of the holders of public power and the groups which are contiguous to it. These phenomena are certainly made possible by the fact that the ruled cannot easily activate “protest” and “defection”. If, however, the judgement expressed on the conduct of governments was not lacking in information, and hence strongly conditioned by ideology, those two forms of political challenge would be fuelled by much greater energy. The point is: if we cannot disburden ourselves of ideology, what can we do to make ideological conditioning less pervasive? How can we avoid or at least minimise “political exploitation”? Mises wrote that, if voluntary cooperation ceases to exist, all political liberties and bills of rights become humbug. Habeas Corpus and trial by jury are a sham if, under the pretext of economic expediency, the authority has full power to relegate every citizen it dislikes to the arctic or to a desert and to assign him ‘hard labor’ for life.184

In other words: it is the social solution to the economic problem which, by restricting the intervention of rulers, defends the ruled from arbitrary power. And there is no doubt about it. Extremely restrictive boundaries to the action of public power are laid down by (voluntary) social cooperation. But there is also something more far-reaching. Voluntary cooperation—that is, cooperation established on the basis of individual choice (which, as we shall see more clearly, obviously needs a private property system) – deals a death blow to any ideology which confers a monopoly over knowledge to any specific social group. Public power thus cannot dictate the content of the lives of the ruled. Social discussion becomes institutionalised. And this is the scrutiny to which any “justification” on the part of rulers is subjected. In this way a cultural habitat of a fallibilistic kind is established, an environment which refuses any “privileged point of view on the world” and allows freedom of choice and competition between values and ideas.185 It is a process of growth of knowledge, which to  Mises (1966), p. 287.  See Hayek (1960), Popper (1991), Bartley (1984), Antiseri (1995), Infantino (2003).

184 185

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differing extents makes it possible to supervise rulers’ activities; this in any case becomes residual in relation to the activities carried out voluntarily by the ruled. It is now clear that the fountain of all counterpowers is the demolition of the monopoly of knowledge. Individual choice and competition flow from that. When rulers are legitimated by a “privileged point of view on the world”, any attempt to limit and supervise their power on the part of the ruled is in itself an unacceptable “fault”. This means that gnoseological absolutism and limited government are concepts which repel each other. One cannot restrict the action of a political chief who is concurrently a religious chief or who is perceived as the embodiment of a Destiny which history has in gestation.

1.7   The Relationship Between Ruled and Rulers: Models Compared Dolf Sternberger identified three different ways in which the relationship between ruled and rulers can be articulated, which he associated with three types of internal peace: peace as regulation of conflict, peace as repression and deception, and peace as redemption from conflict.186 The thinkers to whom Sternberger traced these three political formulas are Aristotle, Machiavelli and Augustine. “Regulation” of conflict is the product of what we are now used to calling “limited government” or “rule of law”. Despite its varied nature, Aristotle’s legacy is of help in this area. Aristotle “isolated”, among all its possible forms, one “kind” of democracy in which “all citizens that are not open to challenge […] have a share in office”, although only law has authority or in which all have a share in “the offices on the mere qualification of being a citizen”, but only the law rules.187 The “constitution is the ordering” of the city.188 And the city is the place where one finds multiplicity, plurality and dialogue.189 The legal aspects of what in the preceding pages we have outlined as (voluntary) social cooperation come here to the fore. This means that “regulation of conflict” is equivalent to “regulation of power”, both social and public.  Sternberger (1978), vol. 1, p. 387.  Aristotle (A), 1292a. 188  Op. cit., 1278b. 189  Op. cit., 1261a-b. 186 187

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The next model is the one inspired by Machiavelli. If we compare the “new prince” to the tyrant in Aristotle’s work, the former loses a lot of his originality. Sternberger went as far as to state that the “new prince” is the “epigone” of the tyrant,190 an “emancipated” descendent, who “has slipped free from his double, from the opposing image of the king, and thus from the canon of virtues which define the king”.191 In fact, Aristotle had written that the tyrant should never renounce force, because this allows him to rule with consent and also without it. And he added that the tyrant, “in all his […] actions real or pretended, should cleverly play the part of royalty”.192 The tyrant must, therefore, be a simulator. In Machiavelli this is expressed as follows: it is not necessary for a prince to possess all of the above-mentioned qualities, but it is very necessary for him to appear to possess them […]. I shall dare to assert this: that having them and always observing them is harmful, but appearing to observe them is useful: for instance, to appear merciful, faithful, humane, trustworthy, religious, and to be so […]. One must understand this: a prince, and especially a new prince, cannot observe all those things for which men are considered good, because in order to maintain the state he must often act against his faith, against charity, against humanity, and against religion.193

Cassirer remarked that “the sharp knife of Machiavelli’s thought has cut off all the treads by which in former generations the state was fastened to the organic whole of human existence”.194 More explicitly, the idea of the Prince implies a conception of social order in which there is a distinct and strong centre which constantly mobilises the periphery and penetrates every social process.195

This is the primacy of politics in the narrower sense, where the State manages to occupy a position which is “entirely independent” and which instrumentalises everything.196 It is the accomplishment of “political  Sternberger (1978), vol. 1, p. 183–4.  Op. cit., p. 188. 192  Aristotle (A), 1314a. 193  Machiavelli (2005), p. 61. 194  Cassirer (1946), p. 140. 195  Belohradsky (1979), p. 25. 196  Cassirer (1946), p. 140. 190 191

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exploitation” in its most complete form. To use the terminology of the preceding sections, we might say that Machiavelli was keenly aware of the economic problem197; he believed that the intersubjective relationship was a zero-sum process198; and he entrusted the solution of that problem to politics in the narrower sense.199 If this is so, the first two models indicated by Sternberger reproduce the opposition between “rule of law” and “rule of men”. They are fully equivalent with the ones used here, which respectively represent the social solution and the political solution to the economic problem. What about the third model? Sternberger called our attention to the Civitas Dei, which Augustine opposed to the civitas terrena. According to Augustine, this opposition is due to the fact that “true justice has no existence save in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ”200; and, outside it, there is nothing more than “great robberies”.201 As Troeltsch pointed out, Augustine felt strongly attracted to monastic life: during the period of his candidacy to baptism he lived a philosophical monkhood in a community of ascetic companions, in the same way that his time as a bishop was a pastoral monkhood of canonical life with priests as companions.202

And this break with the world, with a profession and with sexual life, with the glory and joy of possession was the decisive event in the philosophical and Christian sense at the end of his odyssey of painful indecision and experiments, the harbour […] of knowledge from which purity and beatitude are born.203 197  Machiavelli was obviously not referring to the condition of scarcity. He was making the “desire to accumulate wealth” the cause of conflict. See extensively Tangorra (1900), pp. 566–570. 198  Ibid. 199  Tangorra (op. cit., p. 573–574) quite rightly held that “the power of the Machiavellian State can have no other limit that the genius of the legislator”; Tangorra added that in that State “individual personality is set aside and everything is subordinated to the interest” of the rulers. 200  Augustine (C), II, 21, p. 97. 201  Op. cit., IV, 4, p. 159. 202  Troeltsch (1963), p. 74. 203  Ibid.

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At the root of Augustine’s position, we find therefore a personal conversion, which is a release (or an attempted release) from earthly and carnal bonds and the conquest of freedom of the spirit. This is proposed as a general model for the remoulding of the human condition. In other words, a “new man” is sought, who can be part of a community in divine and fraternal love, which forms a group which never burns out, but which always takes more heart and depth; and which is on earth the Church mingled with many pseudo-believers, and in the hereafter is the heavenly Jerusalem or city of God.204

Turning to Augustine’s own text, matters are described as follows: Cain built a city, but Abel, being a sojourner, built none. For the city of the Saints is above, although here below it begets citizens, in whom it sojourns till the time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together all in the day of resurrection; and then shall the promised kingdom be given to them, in which they shall reign with their Prince, the King of the ages, time without end.205

It follows that the “citizens of the holy city of God […] live according to God in the pilgrimage of this life”.206 The Augustinian model is indebted in various ways to Plato. For this reason, it is much more appropriate to call it the Platonic-Augustinian model. As we shall see at length in the next chapter, the real problem arises when the “pilgrims” decide to build God’s city already on earth. Since they have a systematic need to safeguard their absolutist, or to put it more accurately, their totalitarian pretentions, violence and deception become their indispensable instruments. This means that the model does not accomplish “redemption” from conflict, but is systematically fuelled by the “repression” of differences of any sort. The consequence is that the idea of building the city of God on earth turns into a mere “cover” for profoundly Machiavellian rule, made unrestrainedly horrific and pervasive by the promise of redemption. There is no doubt that the tripartite division suggested by Sternberger confers additional force to the opposition between “industrial society” and “militant society”. And it makes us understand that, while “political  Ibid.  Augustine (C), XV, 1, p. 617. 206  Op. cit., XIV, 9, p. 585. 204 205

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exploitation” (starting with the kind established by bands of robbers and murderers) spawns systems which are openly tyrannical, despotic and authoritarian, the idea of “redemption” generates systems where the power of man over man finds its most terrifying expression. If it were truly what it claims to be, “purification” would extinguish any conflict, because it would abolish any form of power. On the contrary, it produces the most extreme form of dominion. It is the insidious disguise of totalitarianism. In other words, the idea of “purification” lengthens the staircase of power of man over man, by adding another step at the top, which is the exact opposite and the complete negation of the idea of “redemption”. We shall consider this system, which had an extremely long historical incubation, in the next chapter. And we will consider it as the most radical paradigm of “rule of men”. As has been previously mentioned, the conflict “regulation” model, which in Simmel’s approach is based on a “peace treaty” and on “regulated exchange”, is on the other hand the clear expression of “rule of law”; it will be necessary to explore it in depth in order to flesh out its gnoseological, economic and socio-legal bases. This will be the subject of Chap. 3. Since, however, this model is open to being “assaulted” by Machiavellianism, it will be necessary to analyse the ways in which such an “assault” is carried out. And this will be the topic of Chaps. 4 and 5. Here we shall just mention that Auguste Comte expressed his great surprise at the fact that individual freedom of choice places the ruled in a condition of “permanent mistrust” towards public power.207 But Mises quite rightly observed that governments restrict their operations to the area which is permitted to them only if constrained by the law and the citizens who keep watch to ensure that the “boundaries” laid down by the law itself are not overstepped.208

Appendices Appendix A: Power and Influence We know now that power is given by the greater degrees of freedom and the fewer constraints enjoyed by one subject in his relationship with the Other. It is an asymmetrical situation, where for each actor there is a  Comte (1974), p. 115.  Mises (1969), p. 88.

207 208

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difference in the extent of the possibilities they enjoy and the “conditions” which burden them. If the weaker side considers it will derive no benefit from the social relationship, it can withdraw or plan to do so. Apart from its needs, there is no normative prescription hampering it. Political power in the narrower sense, the power which rulers hold, is on the other hand assured by enforceable rules which impose public services on the ruled. Any revocation of consent can lead to the replacement of the actors who occupy positions in the system of public services, but does nothing to abolish the monopoly over these services, which are at the same time associated with a monopoly of force. We find ourselves confronted by an extremely asymmetrical situation, which is made fully visible through exchange theory. What we have so far said about “social power” and “public power” has benefited considerably from Simmel’s lesson, which forces us to go to the root of the phenomenon of power and examine how it is generated. Compared with Weber’s approach, it is broader and possesses greater explanatory strength. It is true that there are points of contact between the two thinkers on the issue of public power. But no more than that: because Weber’s position covers much narrower ground and makes no attempt to identify the microsocial origins of power.209 It is significant that Weber wrote: It is true […] that everyday usage applies the term ‘political’ not only to groups which are the direct agents of the legitimate use of force itself, but also to other, often wholly peaceful groups, which attempt to influence the activity of the political organization. It seems best for present purposes to

209  Weber (1968, vol. 2, p. 945) himself realised the limits of his approach. This is borne out in the following statement, which follows a generic list of forms of power: “the varieties of power are in no way exhausted by the examples just given. Even mere possession can be a basis of power in forms other than that of the market”. And moreover (Ibid.):

domination in the broader sense can be produced not only by the exchange relationships of the market, but also by those of ‘society’; such phenomena may range all the way from the ‘drawing room lion’ to the patented arbiter elegantiarum of imperial Rome or the courts of love of the ladies of Provence. For a discussion stressing the differences between Simmel’s and Weber’s sociological approaches, see also Blau (1964, pp. 12–13).

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distinguish this type of social action, ‘politically oriented’, from political action as such, the actual organized action of political groups.210

Weber’s “political action as such” is identical with what here has been termed political action in the narrower sense. But the fact is that the “parties” which Weber himself referred to are not just “politically oriented” groups; they are actors in the process of managing public power. Moreover, if one considers what was has been previously stated, it becomes clear that all individuals are always “politically oriented”: in the broader sense, because they prefer greater degrees of autonomy to lesser degrees; and in the narrower sense, for the reason that they give or withhold their consent to their rulers. Simmel allows us to clarify one further issue. Even though he often used influence as a synonym of power (something which Weber and many other authors also did), his work affords us the possibility of using those words to mark out two distinct, albeit contiguous, areas.211 In Simmel’s Soziologie, one reads the following: Just as […] our knowledge of external reality does, alongside illusions and inadequacies, still collect a sufficient amount of truths to allow us to live and see our species progress, in the same way each of us has a knowledge of the other with whom we have dealings which is approximate enough to make a trade and a relationship possible. Knowing who one is dealing with is the first condition in order to have something in general to do with someone; the customary mutual introductions in the event of any kind of conversation of a certain length or an encounter on the same social setting are, despite their appearance of being empty forms, an appropriate symbol of the mutual knowledge which is an a priori for any relationship.212

Now, Simmel’s statement that “introductions” are “an appropriate symbol of the mutual knowledge which is an a priori for any relationship” lends itself to some elaboration. Every actor is a range of possibilities and impossibilities. And introductions are a tool by means of which each person displays a fraction of their identity, in order to receive in exchange a small portion of someone else’s identity. This makes it possible for each  Weber (1968), vol. 1, p. 56.  For an analysis of the concept of “influence”, from inside the field of political science, see Stoppino (2001) and the rich bibliography contained therein. 212  Simmel (1908), p. 256, italics added. 210 211

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person to sketch out the “contours” of what the Other may or may not do; and it consequently enables us to establish what the range of possibilities and impossibilities of the other person will allow us to achieve. Expressed more directly, introductions allow us to understand which degrees of freedom we have in relation to the Other and accordingly to understand where the areas of our possible initiatives and “responses” are located. This is only a part of the permanent exploratory journey we undertake in attempting to work out the identities of others and the expectations of our counterparts.213 If this is so, influence is the domain which contains everything we know about the Other and which prevents us from acting in a manner such as to breach the expectations of our interlocutor, prompt him to activate his power and make use of his own degrees of freedom to block or diminish our own action. In other words, an influential man is someone who, without needing to mobilise the resources connected with his position of relative superiority, restricts the sphere of our initiatives. Influence is therefore closely correlated with power, whether it be intrasocial or public. It is an advantage which the powerful enjoy, but it is not identical to the exercise of power. If an actor is forced to impose his degrees of freedom, it means that his mechanism of influence has not become operational. And this can occur if the Other lacks adequate understanding of the identity of the subject he is interacting with and/or if he is motivated by the will to challenge his interlocutor. Appendix B: Catlin’s Inability to Draw More Significant Conclusions from His Premises George E.G. Catlin explicitly acknowledged his debt to Simmel. Despite some reservations, he went as far as to state that his work, A Study of the Principles of Politics, followed Simmel’s distinction between social “forms” and historical contents.214 And he based his analysis on a number of particularly productive points:

213  On this point, see Ortega (1957), pp. 174–196. Smith (1976a, pp. 158–159) had in any case given an exemplary account of intersubjective dynamics, highlighting the fact that each actor is led to place himself in the Other’s position in the attempt to identify his expectations. On this latter point, cf. Infantino (1998), pp. 24–7. 214  Catlin (1930), p. 29, note 2.

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1. Collective life did not derive from individual life, but the opposite is true215: this means, as has often been pointed out, that everything which is human is the product of social interaction. 2. An analysis of political phenomena should start from individual action and, in any case, from the simplest situations.216 3. It is, therefore, necessary “to isolate the political act”,217 which is an act of “control of one human being over another”, which is exercised in “everyday life quite apart from the authority of the State”.218 4. This act originates in the will to accomplish one’s desires219: “It is impossible to base a comprehensive theory of political conduct on the action only of men of good or reasonable will”.220 5. The territory of politics is consequently composed of the “relation of men and men not as bodies, but as wills”,221 so that “the study […] of the laws of politics presupposes a study of [… the] of human pursuit of private will in a social context”.222 Catlin also warned against the possible reification of collective concepts, that “disastrous error” into which the Historical school and the Hegelians had fallen; an error which stresses the “unity of moral sentiment in the group” and which sees politics as the study of the nature and the growth of the State and of the relations between states, rather than the relations between individuals, who are the only “ultimate units”.223 Consistently 215  Here Catlin (op. cit., p.  84, nota 1) quoted Durkheim (1922, p.  264) as his source. Notwithstanding this, and considering the other components underpinning his analysis, it would have been more consistent to have drawn from the tradition of methodological individualism. 216  In this case too, Catlin (op. cit., p. 37, nota 1) referred to heterogeneous sources. He quoted Plato, Aristotle and Mill, without realising that he was dealing with very different paradigms. Just to remain within the specific domain of social science, Mill’s position on the issue is appreciable, but the associationist psychology he adopted clashes with the idea that what is individual derives by differentiation from collective life. 217  Op. cit., p. 68. 218  Op. cit., p. 63. Catlin (op. cit., p. 84) provided the following further clarification: “Every inquiry into society […] must wait until we have completed our inquiries into what may be known about the simple political act”. 219  Op. cit., p. 94. 220  Op. cit., p. 137. 221  Op. cit., p. 74. Catlin is referring to the will to satisfy a need or to accomplish a project. And he rejects any kinship at all with Nietzsche’s will to power. 222  Op. cit., p. 82. 223  Op. cit., p. 148.

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with this, Catlin rejected the idea that social order could be the product of a “super-mind existent in society” or a “demi-god legislator”.224 He clearly understood that the compatibility of individual actions is made possible by a process of mutual co-adaptation of wills. In this co-adaptation he saw a means to accomplish the will of each.225 And he was aware of the fact that, since each person always tries to expand the area of their autonomy, conflict is permanent; in contrast to what was posited by “Hobbes and Natural Rights School”, the conflict is not “prior to the formation of society”: “it is always […] within society, a rivalry of men in relationship”.226 Catlin made a distinction, which he left somewhat vague, between what may be defined as a political element in the broader sense and what can be seen as a political element in the narrower sense.227 The former characterises any action: because in order to translate will into action it is necessary to have power228 or, otherwise said, degrees of freedom. The latter stems from the “control” exercised through the rules laid down by public power.229 Catlin had an extensive knowledge of the social sciences of his time. And with the “material” he had available to him, he could have achieved much greater results than he did. What he lacked was an awareness of the “borders” which separate different research traditions; an awareness which comes from a mastery of methodological issues.230 As a result, although  Op. cit., p. 164.  Op. cit., pp. 154–159. 226  Op. cit. p. 190. 227  Op. cit., pp. 66–69. 228  Op. cit., p. 158. 229  Op. cit., p. 69. 230  His lack of mastery of methodological matters, also led Catlin (op. cit., pp. 42–43) to support behaviourist positions, which are completely incompatible with methodological individualism. It may be useful here to quote a passage from Hayek (1979, p. 85): 224 225

The behaviorist or physicalist who in studying human behavior wished really to avoid using the categories which we find ready in our mind, and who wanted to confine himself strictly to the study of man’s reactions to objects defined in physical terms, would consistently have to refuse to say anything about human actions till he had experimentally established how our senses and our mind group external stimuli as alike or unlike. He would have to begin by asking which physical objects appear alike to us and which do not (and how it comes about that they do) before he could seriously undertake to study human behavior toward these things. For a direct criticism of Catlin, see Popper (1966, vol. 1), pp. 238–9.

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Catlin chose a path, he failed to travel it all the way. For, if one agrees on the need for an approach based on methodological individualism, one cannot do without exchange theory. It becomes necessary to explain the dynamics of social “commerce”; it is not enough to make the action the expression of the will. In other words, we must clarify that the phenomenon of power arises from social cooperation. This is the crucial point. But Catlin skipped it completely. And despite his having referred to cooperation, he did not make use of the theory (i.e. that of exchange) which would have been the most beneficial for his analysis. Furthermore, there is not even a single indication in his work of how it is possible to move from the unclarified elementary political act to the birth and life of public powers. He rejected the contractualist hypothesis. But he failed to provide any alternative explanation. He confronted his readers with public power without giving them the possibility of understanding how that reality can be “broken down” and explained in individualistic terms. That is not all. Apart from deficiencies, there are also contradictions. If one starts from a Simmelian type of methodological approach, the political process can only be ateleological. Nevertheless, Catlin kept afloat the idea of a social order which is consciously and intentionally configured,231 like a fully fledged organisation.232 This is in line with the idea that political science should guide civilisation, which “has ceased to grow unconsciously, and is becoming […] self-conscious and in need on intelligent control over its vast extent”.233 But this contradicts the premises on which Catlin himself based his theory.

 Catlin (1930), pp. 196–197.  Op. cit., p. 198. Catlin (op. cit., p. 458, note 1) went as far as to recruit the help of Plato, comparing law-makers to physicians. This is what triggered Popper’s reaction (1966, vol. 1, p. 316). Popper (op. cit., pp. 256–7) addressed further criticism of the anti-egalitarianism with which Catlin had attacked Kant’s morality; Popper also (op. cit., p.  292) rebutted Catlin’s attempted to place aesthetic and ethical issues on the same level. 233  Op. cit., p. 54. This clashes with other statements by Catlin, one of which may be useful to consider: 231 232

‘Great is truth and it will prevail’ is a powerful battle cry for the crusaders for righteousness, but it is folly to suppose that the hosts of evil and stupidity never triumph or that their triumph is not frequently due to bad strategy of the lovers of the good and reasonable. (op. cit., p. 49)

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Dahrendorf R. (1959) Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. De Mucci R. (1999) Micropolitica, Soveria Mannell: Rubbettino. Downs A. (1957, An Economic Theory of Democracy, New York: Harper & Row. Durkheim É. (1922) De la division du travail social, Paris: Alcan. Durkheim É. (1965) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, New York: Free Press. Easton D. (1953) The Political System. An Inquiry into the State of Political Science, New York: Knopf. Fallocco S. (2006) Azioni individuali e scelte sociali. L’agenda decisionale, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Ferrero G. (1981) Potere. I geni invisibili della città, Milano: SugarCo. Frankel S.H. (1977) Money: Two Philosophies, Oxford: Blackwell. Freud S. (1949) Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, London: Hogarth Press. Freud S. (1962) Civilization and Its Discontents, New York: Norton. Freud S. (1991, On Metapsychology, London: Penguin. Fustel de Coulange N.-D. (1877) The Ancient City, Boston: Lee & Shepard; New York: Dillingham. Geiger T. (1953) Ideologie und Wahrheit, Stuttgart-Wien: Humbold Verlag. Gulisano A. (2012) L’imprenditorialità di Israel Kirzner, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Gumplowicz L. (1902) Die sociologische Staatsidee, Innsbruck: Wagner. Hayek F.A. (1949) Individualism and Economic Order, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hayek F.A. (1952) The Sensory Order, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hayek F.A. (1960), The Constitution of Liberty, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hayek F.A. (1967) Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hayek F.A. (1972) The Road to Serfdom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hayek F.A. (1978) New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hayek F.A. (1979) The Counter-Revolution of Science, Indianapolis: Liberty Press. Hayek F.A. (1982) Law, Legislation and Liberty, London: Routledge Hayek F.A. (1988) The Fatal Conceit, London: Routledge. Hirschman A.O. (1982) Exit, Voice and Loyalty, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard U.P. Hume D. (1903) Essays Moral, Political and Literary, London: Richards. Hume D. (1930) A Treatise of Human Nature, London: Dent. Infantino L. (1990) Ortega y Gasset. Una introduzione, Armando: Roma. Infantino L. (1998), Individualism in Modern Thought. From Adam Smith to Hayek, London: Routledge. Infantino L. (2003) Ignorance and Liberty, London-New York: Routledge. Infantino L. (2008) Individualismo, mercato e storia delle idee, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino.

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CHAPTER 2

The Reshaping of Man and the Birth of Totalitarian Power

2.1   Plato as Theologian and Augustine’s Platonism We should recall that Dolf Sternberger attributed to Augustine the paternity of a model which aims at the elimination of the political dimension of life and the extinction of social conflict. As has already been said, this model did not originate with Augustine, because it was to a large extent foreshadowed in Plato’s works. In this chapter, we shall especially be attempting to highlight the “convergences” between the Platonic formulation and the Augustinian one. And we shall also show that the “redemption from conflict” is only the “cover” for a design which is actually directed towards the establishment of an all-pervading power and the most radical and systematic “repression” of conflict which there can be. It is well known that no direct link can be established between Plato’s writings and Augustine’s, even though Augustine made use of expressions which might mistakenly suggest otherwise. One example is the following statement: “if those men [Plato and his followers] had been able to live their lives again with us, they would have seen immediately to whose authority people could more easily turn for such advise, and, with a few changes here and there in their words and assertions, they would become Christians, as indeed several Platonists have done in recent times and our days”.1 And also the following: “Certain partakers with us in grace of 1

 Augustine (A), IV, 7, p. 34.

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Christ, wonder when they hear and read that Plato had conceptions concerning God, in which they recognise considerable agreement with the truth of our religion”.2 Augustine was so convinced of the “superimposition” of his tradition and Plato’s that he even wondered if it was possible to conjecture whether Plato ever met Jeremiah. But he admitted that Plato would not have been able to have that meeting on his journey to Egypt because Jeremiah “was dead so long before”; nor would it have been possible for Plato to “read those scriptures which had not yet been translated into Greek language”.3 Augustine did however attribute to the founder of the Academy the idea that “a philosopher is a lover of God”4; and he added that “nothing shines forth more conspicuously in those sacred writings”.5 Let us follow Augustine further: the thing “which most of all inclines me almost to assent to the opinion that Plato was not ignorant of those writings is the answer which was given to the question elicited by Moses when the words of God were conveyed to him by the angel; for, when he asked what was the name of that God who was commending him to go and deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this answer was given: ‘I am who am; and thou shall say to the children of Israel, He who is sent me unto you’; as though compared with him that truly is, because He is unchangeable, those things which are created mutable are not – a truth which Plato vehemently held, and most diligently commended. And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be found in the books of those who were before Plato”.6 The above passage shows that Augustine saw Plato’s work as theological. And yet one must agree with Ernst Hoffmann, who pointed out that “Augustine’s cultural bases do not naturally occur in Plato’s classical text, but in the philosophical ideas of the age of empire, founded […] on Hellenistic exegesis. His Latin was the Latin of Virgil which was taught in schools; his career before his conversion was that of a rhetorician and thus his eloquence is that of a Roman neo-Sophist. All he knows of Plato is the tradition of the Roman Stoa, the late Sceptics and the school of Plotinus”.7  Augustine (C), vol. 1, VIII, 11, p. 321.  Op. cit., pp. 321–2. 4  Op. cit., p. 322. 5  Ibid. 6  Op. cit., pp. 322–3. 7  Hoffmann (1960), p. 218. Augustine (B, VII, 9.13, p. 125) himself specified that he had read “certain books of the Platonists, translated from Greek to Latin”. Alfaric (1918, vol. 1, 2 3

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This historical clarification is extremely appropriate. But it should not prevent us from identifying a number of highly significant “convergences”. Priority can be given to the idea that “a philosopher is a lover of God”. It is true that Plato asserted that “the human race will never cease from ills, until the race of those who philosophize correctly and truthfully shall come to political power, or the persons of power in states, by a certain divine allotment, philosophize really”.8 Consequently, there is a need for philosophy. And philosophy is a gift from God. Indeed, “concerning the highest part of human soul, we should consider that God gave this as a genius to each one, which was so dwell at the extremity of the body, and to raise us like plants, not of an earthly but of a heavenly growth […]; for the divine power suspended the head and root of us from that place when the generation of the soul first began, and thus made erect the whole body. He, therefore, who is always occupied with the cravings of desire and ambition, and is eagerly striving after them, must have all his opinions mortal, and, as far as man can be, must be all of him mortal, because he has cherished his mortal part. But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and true wisdom, and has been trained to think that these are the immortal and divine things of man, if he attain truth must of necessity, has far as human nature is capable of attaining immortality, be all immortal, as he ever serving the divine power; and having the genius residing in him in the most perfect order, he must be pre-eminently happy”.9 Augustine himself wrote: “God speaks to a man not by means of some audible creature dinning in his ears, so that atmospheric vibrations connect Him that makes with him that hears the sound, nor even by means of a spiritual being with the semblance of a body, such as we see in dreams or similar states […] does God speak, but with the truth itself, if any one is prepared to hear with the mind rather than the body. For He speaks to that part of man which is better than all else that is in him and than which God Himself alone is better”.10 In relation to truth, Augustine wrote that, “when man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the p. 525) claimed that essentially Plato stands in relation to Plotinus as Plotinus stands in relation to Augustine. See also Cochrane (1957, p. 376). Jaeger (1961, p. 137, n. 10) remarked that Cochrane’s area of research was mostly Latin culture and added that, because of this, he underestimated the influence of Greek philosophy in the development of Christianity. 8  Plato (L), 326a-b. 9  Plato (G), 90a-b-c. 10  Augustine (C), vol. 1, XI, 2, pp. 437–8

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devil”.11 And he added that, when man lives according to himself, “assuredly he lives according to a lie”12; “when a man lives according to the truth, he lives not according to himself, but according to God; for He was God who said, I am the truth”.13 Thus, Plato and Augustine attributed a divine origin to knowledge. The mind is the channel of communication between God and man. Obviously, truth resides in God, who is “the measure of all things”,14 which is exactly the opposite of what Protagoras asserted when he stated that “the measure of all things” is man.15 Since he has a privileged bond with the divinity in Plato’s work, the philosopher is called upon to redeem all those who are in error. The philosopher is a “redeemer”.16 He communicates with God and has to turn back to “teach” what he learns.17 Man has to free himself of the consequences of his fall. The “soul of man is immortal. At one time it comes to an end – which is called death – and at another is born again, but is never finally exterminated”.18 It pre-exists our birth, as also pre-exist “all these absolute realities, such as beauty and goodness, which we are always talking about”.19 In other words, before our material lives, “exist these realities” and our soul exists: “It is logically just as certain that our souls exist before our birth as it is that these realities exist”.20  Op. cit., vol. 2, XIV, 4, p. 6  Ibid. It is worth mentioning that Augustine (ibid., p. 7) quoted the First Letter to the Corinthians here, where Paul (2, 14) stated: “the natural man receiveth not the things of Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”. Addressing God, Augustine (B, VII, 21, 27, p. 136) “confessed”: “Most eagerly, then, did I seize the venerable writing of Thy Spirit, but more especially the Apostle Paul”. Paul was one of the links between Augustine and Greek culture. Hoffmann (1960, p. 148) rightly remarked: “in the Gospel there is no Hellas. But it is present in Paul’s letters. Paul wanted to be a Jew for the Jews, a Greek for the Greeks, and he was and had to be in order to carry out his mission as he understood it”. And also (ibid., p. 145): “The reception of Greek thought on the part of Christians already had its foundation in the fact that the Christian faith, in Paul and John, was taken up by minds shaped by the Greek style of education”. 13  Augustine (C), XIV, 4, p. 648. 14  Plato (G), 716c. 15  Protagoras (A) 1. 16  Hoffmann (1960), p. 176. 17  Ibid. 18  Plato (E), 81b. 19  Plato (A), 76e. 20  Ibid. 11 12

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Man lives among appearances, among the shadows of the “cave”. But he can save himself: because “the excellence of thought […] never loses its potency”.21 It is enough for man to change his position: “An eye could not be converted to the light from the darkness except by turning the whole body. Even so this organ of knowledge must be turned around from the world of becoming together with the entire soul, like the scene-­shifting periactus in the theater, until the soul is able to endure the contemplation of essence and the brightest region of being. And this, we say, is the good”.22 What is therefore required is a veritable conversion, which involves “the wheeling round of the whole soul towards the light of the Idea of God, the divine origin of the universe”.23 Released from the shadows of the cave, philosophers know the “true being”. They love “the reality [of the beautiful] itself” and not opinions.24 Their task is to convert to truth, to redeem humankind. Plato needed a Redeemer. And he found it in the philosopher, that is, in himself. Augustine already had a Redeemer available, through whom he reached God: “I enter into my inward self, Thou leading on […]. I entered, and with the eye of my soul (such it was) saw above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the Unchangeable Light. Not this common light, which all flesh may look upon, nor, as it were, a greater one of the same kind, as though the brightness of this should be much more resplendent, and with its greatness fill up all things […] When I first knew Thee, Thou liftedst me up […]. And I viewed the other things below Thee, and perceived that they neither altogether are, nor altogether are not. They are, indeed, because they are from Thee; but are not, because they are not what Thou are. For that truly is which remains immutably”.25  Plato (F), 518e.  Op. cit., 518c. 23  Jaeger (1986), vol. 2, p. 295. 24  Plato (F), 580a. 25  Augustine (B), VII, 10. 16 and 11. 17, pp. 128–9. It is worth comparing Augustine’s experience with Plotinus’s (A, IV, 8, 1): “Many times it has happened: liftet out of my body into my self, becoming external to all other things and self-centered, beholding a marvellous beauty, then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order, enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine, stationing within It by having attained that activity, poised above whatsoever within the Intellectual is less than the Supreme yet, there comes the moment of descent from intellection to reasoning and after the sojourn in the divine, I ask myself how it happens that I can now be descending, and how did the Soul ever enter into my body, the Soul which, even within the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be”. 21 22

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Accordingly, “in the inward man dwells truth”.26 It is something which, for Plato and Augustine, stands “beyond proof and refutation”.27 It is a “gift”: it does not originate with social dialogue or from a public process in which it is searched for. Everything takes place within a markedly religious territory. And the consequence is that truth can only be shared among those who have received the “gift”; it cannot be legitimated through resort to critical reasoning. This explains why, faced by Plato’s construction, George Grote wrote: “Plato does not pretend to substitute truth in place of fiction; but to furnish a better class of fictions in place of a worse. The religion of the Commonwealth, in his view, is to furnish fictions and sanctions to assist the moral and political views of the lawgiver, whose duty it is to employ religion for this purpose”.28 Hans Kelsen argued that Plato’s dialectic “is rather to be understood as a spiritual exercise similar to that of prayer”.29 And Werner Jaeger asked himself whether “had Plato not placed man in a universe that in its perfect order and harmony was an eternal model for the life of man?”.30 This is the reason why Jaeger himself went on to state that Plato should be considered as “the greatest of all classical theologians”.31 As we know, Augustine asked himself, admitting that he was unable to provide an answer, whether Plato’s doctrine had been in some way foreshadowed in the works of previous philosophers. In order to answer this question, we should bear in mind that with Hesiod we already have a work of “theology in a very real sense”.32 His poem (the Theogony) “seeks to proclaim the ‘truth’ (aletheia) which he has learned from the mouth of the goodness herself”.33 “Of all the Greek writers who have come to us, Hesiod was the first to give the word ‘truth’ such a pregnant and almost philosophical sense; and it is in this sense that Parmenides […] uses it, carrying it on to a new stage of meaning. He proclaims the ‘truth’ about  Augustine (A), XXXIX, 72, p. 262.  I am using an expression taken from Simmel (1959), p. 31. 28  Grote (1867), vol. 3, p. 187. See also Zeller (1888), pp. 484–485. Popper (1966, vol. 1, p. 142) stressed that “Plato’s attitude towards religion […] is practically identical with that of Critias, his beloved uncle, the brilliant leader of the Thirty Tyrants, who established an inglorious blood-régime in Athens after the Peloponnesian war […]. In Critias’ view, religion is nothing but the lordly lie of a great and clever statesman”. 29  Kelsen (1938), p. 106. 30  Jaeger (1961), p. 66. 31  Jaeger (1986), vol. 2, p. 285. See also Reale (1997), vol. 2, pp. 272–281. 32  Jaeger (1964), p. 12. 33  Ibid., p. 94. 26 27

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Being, which is eternal and without beginning, opposed to appearance and all the deceptive opinions of mortals”.34 And “this very opposition, so sharply stressed, will show his truth to be of divine origin, which Parmenides reinforces quite explicitly by his poetical device of the goodness who reveals this message to him, the only mortal so to be favoured”.35 It is a veritable “religious experience”,36 which led Parmenides himself to conclude that “the world of Becoming is mere appearance” and that his “doctrine of the Existent” has not the task to “explain the natural world of multiplicity and motion […], but to explain the errors of those men who have put duality in place of the One as the primal substance, and motion in place of that which persists unchanged”.37 This is why all “properties are obtained negating certain properties of the sense-world. The Existent is un-become and imperishable, whole, single, unshakable, temporally without limits, and complete”.38 Thus, Parmenides proceeds “to strip reality of its character as a world, by removing every feature that goes to make it a world at all”.39 It happened that “the revelation received by Parmenides, and his conviction that a few may reach certainty about both the unchanging world of eternal reality and the unreal and changing world of verisimilitude and reception, were two of the main inspiration of Plato’s philosophy”.40 And the acceptance of Plato’s work on the part of Christianity is due to his role as “supreme religious and theological authority, a role that he assumed in  Ibid.  Ibid. See Parmenides (A), 1. 36  Jaeger (1964, p. 96) further commented: “No one who studies this supernatural overture could ever suppose that the philosopher’s aim in this passage is merely to provide an effective stage-setting. His mysterious vision in the realm of light is a genuine religious experience: when the weak human eye turns towards the hidden truth, life itself becomes transfigured. This is a kind of experience that has no place in the religion of the official cults. Its prototype is rather to be sought in the devotions we find in the mysteries and initiation ceremonies”. It is useful to compare the description Parmenides gave of his own “experience” with Plotinus’s and Augustine’s accounts (see note 25 in this chapter). 37  Jaeger (1964), pp. 106. 38  Ibid. We find the same method in Plotinus (A, V, 5, 11), who stated that God “is infinite also by right of being a pure unity with nothing towards which to direct any partial content. Absolutely One, it has never known measure and stands outside of number, and so is under no limit either in regard to any extern or within itself; for any such determination would bring something of the dual into it”. Plotinus works under the heavy burden of Plato’s Parmenides: the one is defined solely through negative determinations. 39  Jaeger (1964), p. 106. 40  Popper (1991), p. 12. 34 35

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the course of the second century and that reached its culminating point in the so-called Neoplatonism of Origen’s generation in the third century”.41 “Plato’s Ideas […] were interpreted as the thoughts of God […]. Clement and Origen grew up under this cultural system. It dominated not only the philosophical schools of their time but also the traditional Hellenic paidea. Porphyry, the Syrian Neoplatonist, did not derive his Platonic faith from his philosophical teacher Plotinus, whom later in his life he met in Rome. He acquired it at the very source of classical culture and education, at Athens, in the school of the rhetorician Longinus”.42 For Plato philosophy was paideia, that is, the education of man. And Origenes saw Christianity in the same way. “So Plato and philosophy became for Origin the most powerful allies of Christianity”.43 God is the “pedagogue of the whole world”.44 And there is more to it. Jaeger had no hesitation in stating that, “from the fourth century B.C. on, the form of Greek religion that appealed most of the people of higher education was not the religion of the Olympic gods but that of the mysteries, which gave the individual a more personal relationship to the godhead. Whenever philosophers compared their teachings to religion wisdom, they referred to the mysteries as the higher form of religion that had a message for mankind”.45 Therefore, the question posed by Ernst Hoffman is very appropriate: “Is Plato’s doctrine not a immediate relapse into Orphism? Can there be anything more orphic in philosophy than the myth of the cave?”.46 The answer is: “Our corporeal existence is the same as an existence in a tomb-like cave, and this cave is the same as the Orphic Hades. Men are chained just like the damned people in the myth. One needs to reach liberation through the action of someone who descends from the real realm of light into this world of living corpses”.47 Hoffman went on to write: “Is this not the orphic Messiah? But the path of salvation proceeds by stages. And are these not the stages  Jaeger (1961), p. 44.  Op. cit., p. 45. 43  Op. cit., p. 65. 44  Op. cit., p. 135. See Plato (H), 897b. Jaeger (1961, p. 135, note 39) stressed the fact that “Origen’s doctrine of the divine education of mankind” is a “new stage” in the history of paideia. In Jaeger’s opinion, the work which Koch (1932) carried out on Origen gives full legitimacy to such a conclusion. 45  Jaeger (1961), pp. 55–6. 46  Hoffmann (1960), p. 176. 47  Ibid. 41 42

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of the consecrations? Does the escape from the cave, with its series of phenomena, not undergo the influence of the orphic cycle? Does the sun, which is outside, not represent the pure mysticality of light?”.48 And the conclusion is: “The greater the probability with which we can establish Plato’s formal dependency on Orphism, the clearer it appears that the logos has already moved off in a completely different direction”.49

2.2   Plato and Augustine: The Reshaping of Man and the World We should further recall that Augustine stated: “If, then, Plato defined the wise man as one who imitates, knows, loves this God, and who is rendered blessed through fellowship with Him in His own blessedness, why discuss with the other philosophers? It is evident that none come nearer to us than the Platonists”.50 Jaeger’s comment was as follows: “When St. Augustine in his De civitate Dei speaks of Greek philosophy in this connexion as the precursor of the Christian religion, he is living a thoroughly correct account of the historical relationship between the two”.51 Consequently, despite the fact that “Augustine’s process of development” had “no connection with authentic Platonism”, in “a deeper sense Augustine” was “Platonic” and was “Christianity’s Plato”.52 Nor could it have been otherwise. Plato and Augustine both, albeit in different ways, affirmed the existence of a privileged knowledge, which is possessed by the Redeemer (the philosopher or Christ) and which is spread to others through conversion. It is religious truth. But not just any kind of religious truth. It is connotated by a very specific certainty: of being able to reshape man and the world. Thus, it is not an attempt to assert a mere theocratic system. There 48  Ibid. Hoffmann (ibid.) specified: “the stages are not the degrees of initiation of the epopts, but the stages of knowledge which the disciple […] must pass through […]. The redeemer […] is […] a man who has completed his studies and now must retrace his steps in to teach what he has learnt”. 49  Op. cit., p. 168. On the relationship between Orphism, Platonism and Plotinism, see the classic and detailed work by Macchioro (1922), which however does not figure among the references given by Hoffmann. On the other hand, Jaeger (1964, p. 58 and p. 216, note 13) did take Macchioro’s work into account. Macchioro’s book was translated into English in 1930 (From Orpheus to Paul: A History of Orphism). 50  Augustine (C), vol. 1, VIII, 5, p. 312. 51  Jaeger (1964), p. 48. 52  Hoffmann (1960), p. 214.

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is something in it which holds out the promise of acting at a much greater depth, of causing a rebirth of man and pacifying him with himself and the world: the political dimension and conflict are both expunged from the human condition. Through conversion or revelation, man thus comes to share in a truth which saves, a salvific truth. As soon as one introduces a privileged source of knowledge, it will prevail over all others. It becomes all-pervading, it expands and overruns every trait and segment of life. And, if it derives from the original and declared connection with cosmic forces, it takes on a specifically religious character.53 Political, economic, legal, artistic, scientific and all other human activities have then to relinquish their rules and the social processes which originate them and which they in turn set into motion. That is, they must subject themselves to a religiously established truth. This is even more the case when the message promises “salvation”. Plato proceeded without any uncertainties. Among other things, he wrote that the legislator “ought to leave nothing unsaid in support of the ancient opinion that there are Gods”,54 and persuade people that “the ruler of the universe has ordered all things with a view to the excellence and preservation of the whole, and each part, as far as may be, has an action and passion appropriate to it. Over these, down to the least fraction of them, ministers have been appointed to preside, who have wrought out their perfection with infinitesimal exactness”.55 The politician is the “divine Shepard”, who must raise and guide his “herd”.56 And “the best thing of all is not that laws should rule, but that a man should rule, supposing him to have wisdom and royal power”.57 As the depositary of the “science of Good and Evil”, the legislator must decree: “Shrines of the gods no one must possess in a private house; and if anyone is proved to have committed an impious act […] the Law-wardens shall judge […], and then shall bring the offenders before the court, and shall impose upon them the due

53  It is true that Plato made politics the “royal science”; and yet politics takes on that rank on account of being legitimated by its privileged connection with the divinity. It is thus a religious manifestation. 54  Plato (H), 890d. 55  Ibid., 903b. 56  Plato (B), 275b-c-d. 57  Ibid., 294a.

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penalty for their impiety”.58 Religion justifies public power and becomes the exclusive and compulsory source of truth.59 No other choice is available. Thus, once the issue is phrased, it is clear that, in the Platonic construction, “evil” is equated with individual autonomy. But “impiety” can be uprooted: the philosopher, “associating with the divine order, will himself become orderly and divine”60; he will take the “city and the characters of men, as they might a tablet, and wipe it clean”,61 proceeding to a “purgation”.62 Therefore, the destiny of the individual cannot be different from what is determined by conversion, the imposition of a compulsory religious truth or a “purgation”. And this is equivalent to the introduction of the terror, which is “the rudimentary form of eschatology […] and together its most radically summary method”.63 Consequently, there is an apparent identification of “evil” with individual autonomy and there is no mistaking the instruments with which Plato intended to achieve the eradication of any freedom of choice and the erection of a social habitat which would prevent any individualistic resurgence. For Plato, “the best city is that whose state is most like that of an individual man”64; there must be a situation in which “the greater number use the expression ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ of the same things in the same

 Plato (H), 910c-d.  Burckhardt (1929, vol. 1, p. 460–1) commented: “the family and its gods were the only refuge for the soul when it wanted to retreat from the polis”. The polis could not, and in realty did not, want to interfere with the soul of the individual. This is completely different from the “religious police” which Plato proposed. See, at greater length, Jones (1956, p.  91), Infantino (2003), pp. 2–4. 60  Plato (F), 500d. 61  Op. cit., 501a. 62  Op. cit., 735c. 63  Sternberger (1978), vol. 1, p. 298. In corroboration of Sternberger’s words, one may read the following passage from Plato (F, 735d-e): with regard to the “social purification, the case stands thus. There are many ways of effecting a purgation, some of them milder, some sharper. Some—the sharpest and best of all—will be at the disposal of one who is at once autocrat and legislator, but a legislator who establishes a new society and new laws with less than autocratic power will be well satisfied if he can so much as reach his end of purgation by the mildest of methods. The best method of all, like the most potent medicine, is painful; it is that which effects correction by combination of justice with vengeance, in the last instance, to the point of death or exile, usually with result of clearing society of its most dangerous members, great and incurable offenders”; see also 736a-b-c. 64  Plato (F), 462d. 58 59

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way”.65 Unity must take the place of “plurality”. And if conversion does not occur, if one does not succeed in transforming man internally, then one acts on the external conditions: the compulsory truth is imposed and a “purgation” is enacted. This is accompanied by communism of property (of women and children), because only thus men “would save themselves and save their city”.66 In other words, the abolition of private property is pursued because without personal property individuals will not have available to them the resources required to accomplish any individually decided goals.67 To make social control complete, there is also reward or punishment in the afterlife: “he who has lived all his life in justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead, to the islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil; but that he who has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house of vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus”.68 The characteristics of the Platonic universe are thus clearly outlined. There is the earthly world and the afterworld. And in this world there are virtuous people and evil people. As long as the planned republic has not been built, “such a city is not one, but two, the one of poor men, the other of rich men, who are living on the same spot and ever conspiring against one another”69: because, “when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls”.70 De facto Plato’s universe already encompasses Augustine’s. One can also add that Plotinus would have liked to build a Platonopolis, in which the principles and rules laid down by the founder of the Academy could be  Ibid.  Op. cit., 417a. For a detailed discussion of the issue, see Infantino (2003), pp. 41–48. 67  Popper (1966, p. 38) rightly wrote: “Plato’s greatness as a sociologist does not lie in his general and abstract speculations about the law of social decay. It lies rather in the wealth and detail of his observations, and in the amazing acuteness of his sociological intuition. He saw things which had not been seen before him, and which were rediscovered only in our own time. As an example, […] his emphasis upon the economic background of the political life and the historical development; a theory revived by Marx under the name of historical materialism”. On the relationship between economic freedom and political freedom, one should always bear in mind the pathbreaking contributions of James Harrington (1924) and François Bernier (1914). Cf. Pellicani (1979, 2005), Infantino (2003). In his extensive discussion of the issue, Pipes (1999) completely neglected Bernier’s work. See also note 86 in the next chapter. 68  Plato (D), 523b. 69  Plato (F), 551d, italics added. 70  Op. cit., 550e. 65 66

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given concrete execution.71 One therefore needs to take the Plotinian connection into account. And it would be wrong to forget that Augustine found a definite confirmation of the idea of two cities and the conflict between them in Paul. Because Paul did write: “no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident; for the just shall live by faith […]. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law”.72 And also: “if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. […] the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like […]. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith”.73 Obviously, the rejection of the law (of Moses) fuelled the conflict between Paul and Jerusalem.74 What Paul really wanted was not to be an apostle among apostles, but to oust Christ’s direct disciples and to take on a prophetic role. If one considers closely what Weber asserted in general terms, it all becomes very easily understandable: only the prophet can pose “in a revolutionary and sovereign manner, [… he] transforms all values 71  Porphyry (A, XII): “The Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina greatly honoured and venerated Plotinus, who thought to turn their friendly feeling to some good purpose. In Campania there had once stood, according to tradition, a City of Philosophers, a ruin now; Plotinus asked the Emperor to rebuild this city and to make over the surrounding district to the new-founded state; the population was to live under Plato’s laws: the city was to be called Platonopolis; and Plotinus undertook to settle down there with his associates. He would have had his way without more ado, but that opposition at court, prompted by jealousy, spite, or some such paltry motive, put an end to the plan”. 72  Paul (B), Letter to the Galatians, 3, 11–13. 73  Op. cit., 5, 18–22. 74  In the Acts of the Apostles (21, 17–24), it is stated: “And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present. And when he had salutated them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law. And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to be circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? The multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law”.

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and breaks all traditional and rational norms: It has been written …, but I say unto you”.75 His gift (or revelation) “disrupts rational rule as well as tradition altogether and overturns all notions of sanctity. Instead of reverence for customs that are ancient and hence sacred, it enforces the inner subjection to the unprecedented and absolutely unique”.76 And Paul demanded “inner subjection”: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God”.77 The believer is a “new man”: “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according the deceitful lusts. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness”.78 There is a conflict between the new man and the old man, or if you will, between the community of the faithful and that of the infidels. Therefore, from Plato’s two cities to Paul’s two communities there is not much of a distance to travel. And Augustine’s two cities lie on the same coordinates. In summarising Augustine’s position, Hoffman wrote: “in the case of our being chosen to be citizens of the Civitas Dei, we will never be at home on earth, be we kings or beggars or bishops. We are pilgrims travelling through a foreign land and any attempt to feel ourselves in familiarity with it is destined to go up in smoke”.79 In other words: on earth, the believers are “children of God, but children living in a foreign land”.80 Referring specifically to Paul, Augustine wrote: “because some live according to the flesh and others according to the spirit, there have arisen two cities […]; we might equally well have said: because some live  Weber (1978), vol. 2, p. 1225.  Op. cit., p.  1227. Ortega (1933, p.  110) wrote: for Paul, “the law is an inextricable tangle where man loses his way. Enough with the law! Only the new union with God is necessary: faith, all that is needed is faith […]. Paul does not rule out […] the need for works in order to be saved, but  – it is understood  – works which spring from faith and not from the law”. 77  Paul, Second letter to the Corinthians, 6, 14–16. 78  Paul, Letter to the Ephesians, 4, 22–24. 79  Hoffmann (1960), pp. 223–4. 80  Op. cit., p. 197. Hoffmann (op. cit., p. 451, note 21) himself added that the use of the expression “foreign land” is authorized by Marcion, the “most rigid Pauline thinker ever”. 75 76

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according to man, others according to God”.81 Consequently, “two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self”.82 There are thus two opposed communities: one populated by just men, the other by the heirs of Cain: Cain “built a city, but Abel, being a sojourner, built none. For the city of the Saints is above, although here below it begets citizens, in whom it sojourns till the time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together all in the day of resurrection; and then shall the promised kingdom be given to them, in which they shall reign with their Prince, the King of the ages, time without end”.83 And yet, if one supposes that the world is populated by two communities, that of the believers, who embody the new man, and that of the infidels, who embody the old man, a slippery slope opens up.84 The life of the faithful foreshadows a possible Utopia or superterrestrial world of the “blessed”. And the terror can accomplish salvation by eliminating the infidels and making this world the kingdom of the just. It is the triumph of impatience, which imposes the use of terrorist instruments.85 This is why Augustine, not unlike Plato, went as far as to assert the need “to destroy what is decaying”,86 because it is in this way that “the light of truth drives out the darkness of error”.87 He set as his premise the idea that it is possible that who “suffers persecution is unjust” and “one who persecutes is

 Augustine (C), vol. 2, XIV, 4, p. 7.  Op. cit., XIV, 28, p. 47. 83  Op. cit., XV, 1, p. 51. 84  Voegelin (2000, p. 176) wrote that the “church actually evolved from the eschatology of the real in history toward the eschatology of trans-historical, supernatural perfection”. He went on (op. cit., pp. 176–7) to point out that Augustine (C, vol. 2, XX, 7, 1, p. 356) dismissed as “ridiculous fancies” the “revolutionary expectation of a second Coming that would transfigure the structure of history on earth”. Voegelin saw in this a “break” between Augustine and John’s “revolutionary annunciation of the millennium in which Christ would reign with his saints on this earth” (op. cit., p. 176). The idea that the Church extinguished, or kept in check, the revolutionary message had already been well voiced by Troeltsch (1960, vol. 1, pp. 112–5). Nevertheless, there remains the fact that in Augustine’s work the earthly community of believers provides a foreshadowing of the celestial city. This, as indicated in the text, leads to the permanent temptation to coercively extend the “purity” of the “just” to the wicked, “saving” the latter from their perversions and sins. See also Boniolo (2011), pp. 226–229. 85  Sternberger (1978), vol. 1., p. 298. See also Pellicani (2007), p. 209. 86  Augustine (D), 2, 8, p. 402. 87  Op. cit., 1, 3, p. 379. 81 82

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just”,88 so that it becomes “a good deed to correct the evil even by means of an evil”.89 They are only “the minds of the agents” which count.90 This means that those who combat evil can resort to evil, because their goal is good. “Whatever […] the true and rightful Mother does, even when something severe and bitter is felt by the children at her hands, she is not rendering evil for evil, but is applying the benefit of discipline to counteract the evil of sin, not with the hatred which seeks to harm, but with the love which seeks to heal”.91 And here the principle of love reveals all its limitations. Its meaning is unmistakable: “I shall love you as long as you are the way I wish you to be; when you are not, you will have to submit to my will”. Applied to the full scope of social life, its logic is obsessively oppressive. It is significant that Augustine stated that the church “persecutes by loving”.92 Which is equivalent to saying that the principle of love expresses all its dangerousness when it is embodied in public power. The imperator felix is he who makes his power the “handmaid” of God,93 who legitimises the political command through religion, which is a religion of “salvation”. Sacerdotium and imperium conjoin in the closest of fellowships. And the salvific religious belief can avail itself of the force of public power in order to impose itself through coercion: because the “formidable power of the authorities of this world […], when it assists the proclamation of the truth, it is the means of profitable admonition to the wise”.94  Op. cit., 2, 8, p. 382.  Op. cit., 2, 7, p. 381. 90  Ibid. 91  Op. cit., 2, 6, p. 400. 92  Augustine (E, 2, 11, pp. 185–6). It is therefore useful to point out that Brown (2000, p. 236) saw in Augustine “the first theorist of Inquisition”. 93  Augustine (C), vol. 1, V, 24, p. 223. Augustine (op. cit., V, 25–26, pp. 223–27) identified the imperator felix first in Constantine and then in Theodosius. The latter, as we know, was responsible for the edict of Thessalonica which “made Christianity a state religion, the Catholic church a state church and heresy a state crime” (Küng 1995, p. 183). 94  Augustine (D), 6, 20, p. 412, where he followed Paul (Letter to the Romans, 13, 1–4), who had already stated: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good”. If however authority descends from God and those who oppose it oppose the divinely established order, the life of the world becomes a providential plan, on the strength of which everything must find a justification. Which, mutatis 88 89

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One can then understand the reason why Popper wrote that those who “exalt Plato’s reputation as a teacher of morals and announce to the world that his ethics is the nearest approach to Christianity before Christ, are preparing the way for totalitarianism, and especially for a totalitarian […] interpretation of Christianity”.95 And this triggers some further remarks. As we know, Augustine was for a long time a follower of Manicheism, from which he later formally distanced himself. But it is not a conception one can leave behind just by making use of a few rhetorical expedients. When one calls for the immediate realisation of a design of salvation, one cannot escape the dualism set up by the extremist conflict between Good and Evil, between the principle of Light and the principle of Darkness. It is an opposition which breaks up social cooperation and leaves no space for any possibility of conciliation: because the “infidels”, the “evil” threaten the lives of the “just” and prevent them from enjoying their blessedness. The two cities, the two communities, the new man and the old man, are products of the same extremist logic, which sees the end of the power of man over man and of everyday conflict achieved by means of a supreme, total, exterminating and conclusive conflict. This shows that the principle of love is acceptable only as far as it is enacted on a voluntary basis. In such a case, the relationship can also be explained by exchange theory, in terms of individual choice.96 And yet, if it falls outside that hypothesis, the principle becomes an exclusive means of tyranny.

2.3   The Totalitarianism of the Platonic-Augustinian Model As has been just now recalled, Popper identified the Platonic model of society with totalitarianism, extending this identification to the models deriving from a Platonic reading of Christianity. Nevertheless, Carl J. Friedrich, in opposition to the excessive expansion of the concept of totalitarianism, wrote: “Such ideologically motivated concern for the whole man, such an intent upon total control, has occurred in other mutandis, in Hegelian terms means that everything “which is real is rational”. We know that Hegel (1955, vol. 1, p. 49) presented his philosophy as “a theodicy, a justification of God”. On this topic, see Pellicani (2000), p. 31. 95  Popper (1966), vol. 1, p. 104. 96  On marriage as a form of exchange, see in particular Lévi-Strauss (1949).

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regimes in the past, notably theocratic systems […]. It also found expression in some of the most renowned philosophical systems, especially that of Plato, who certainly in The Republic, The Statesman, and The Laws advocates total control in the interest of good order in the community. This in turn has led the profound and unfortunate misunderstanding of Plato as a totalitarian; he was in fact an authoritarian, favoring the autocracy of the wise”.97 And yet Friedrich is displaying inattentiveness in his reading of Plato’s texts. By saying that “terror […] is the very essence” of the totalitarian regime, Hannah Arendt is pointing us in the right direction.98 But we need to understand that the terror is the specific consequence of the fact that the “different one” or the dissident is considered to be the extremely dangerous “carrier of a [moral] disease”.99 This means that the institutionalisation of terror is precisely the product of a gnoseological conception which, in judging it possible to rapidly engineer the new man, proceeds single-mindedly to the elimination of those who are evil. Thus the root of totalitarianism lies in the idea of “redemption”. Or, in other words, the “very essence” of the totalitarian regime is composed of an extreme form of cognitive distortion which is fuelled by the delusion of being able to liberate the human condition from any conflict and which sees any delay placed in the way of the achievement of this goal as a crime. If we accept this, then Plato cannot escape being defined as totalitarian. The attempt to “save” man through conversion and the continual “wiping the tablet clean”, not to mention any of the other measures contained in Plato’s text, are the most typical instruments of totalitarianism. Obviously, there are also authoritarian and theocratic systems.100 If however the need for “redemption” and its earthly urgency are proclaimed then one finds oneself on the road to totalitarianism.  Friedrich (1968), pp. 58–9.  Arendt (1962), p. 344. 99  Op. cit., p. 424. 100  This is why there can be regimes which are simply authoritarian or theocratic. And here one can agree with Friedrich, who did, however, overstep the mark when, in challenging the excessive expansion of the concept of totalitarianism, wrote (1968, p. 59): “if this view of totalitarianism were to be accepted, it would be necessary to describe the order of medieval (as well as other) monasteries as totalitarian; for it is certainly often characterized by such a scheme of total control of the life of its inmates”. Friedrich does not take into account the fact that entry into a monastery is voluntary and that a monastery is a small “circle”, placed within a much larger context provided with some freedom. 97 98

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To make the issue even clearer, we can point out that Plato stated that “change […] is always highly perilous”.101 Change is the outcome of individual choice and social intercourse. This is why these phenomena need to be made impossible. It is exactly the same as Augustine’s problem. The basic issue is similar for him too. And it lies precisely in “individualistic freedom”.102 In this case too, individual autonomy needs therefore to be made an impossibility. Plato condemned Athenian individualism. Augustine endorsed Plato’s condemnation: he laid the blame for the fall of Greco-Roman civilisation on individual autonomy of choice. For both, the transformation or reshaping of man and the world needed to be total. Some will say that Plato’s project emphasised a “utopian blueprint” whereas Augustine’s conception stands mostly as a “prophecy”.103 But the goal is the same and the instruments are not dissimilar. Conversion needs to uproot the individual from his previous social affiliations and conceptions.104 He must “lose” his past; everything must be erased. Hence the overridingly nihilistic character of the project: it is necessary to generate the new from the destruction of what was, because only thus is a total rebirth possible. The individual is imprisoned in an exclusive and totalising belief, and he is left to be extinguished by the All of the “Republic” or the “New Jerusalem”. In this way, any individual autonomy is prevented as well as the possibility of being contaminated through others or questioning oneself.  Plato (H), 797d.  I am making use here of an expression taken from Barbero (1965), p. 43. 103  For the distinction between “utopia” and “prophecy” the reader is referred to Popper (1991), pp. 336–46. One can in any case say that a utopian discloses the details of the future society, whereas the formulator of a prophecy, whether religiously or philosophically motivated, stops with the announcement of a new world. On this point, see Mises (1981, pp. 375–6), Pellicani (1996, p. 693). Marx (1976, vol. 1, p. 99) opposed the utopians and refused to write Comtian “recipes” for the “cook-shops of the future”. He formulated, that is, an “unconditioned prophecy”. Since the perfect world he announced is left to our imagination, his prophetic message has great power of delegitimation against an existing reality which is in any case “corrupt”. As explained in the text, the results which utopia and prophecy aim at are not however dissimilar. Once power has been achieved, even those who omitted any prefiguration of a future society will need to regulate social life in detail. This represents the all-pervading and at the same time the deepest triumph of “prescription”. Any possibility of choice is swept away. 104  It is very significant that, in referring to Christ, Luke (14, 25–26) wrote: “and he turned, and said unto them, ‘If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple’”. 101 102

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Nor is a difference marked between Plato and Augustine by the fact that the Augustinian design places the conflict between earthly and heavenly city in the foreground. In actual fact, as we have seen, the clash is between the just and the wicked. This is a situation which arises whenever a project of salvation is embraced and its urgent accomplishment is demanded. If there is only one meaning in the process of life, if there is only one definition available for good and bad (which one wants to bring to a rapid realisation), humankind is immediately split into two opposing sides, which can also be seen as two cities committed to an extreme and relentless struggle, in which what is at stake is salvation itself and not the solution to any specific practical issue.105 Those who believe themselves to be the bearers of the only possible truth live as “pilgrims” or “strangers”, at least as long as they are a minority.106 They are however the depositaries of a moral difference, which makes them superior to those who, by guiltily subtracting themselves from the knowledge of good and evil, give themselves over to wickedness. The error which is committed is thus the consequence of a bad will which, corrupted by material interests, opposes good. This means establishing an equivalence between knowledge and virtue. And the wicked are those who refuse the only possible truth. Which is a deception: since there is no science of good and evil. And the only achievable result is the uprooting of gnoseological fallibilism, with all the repercussions such an uprooting produces. It follows that the PlatonicAugustinian model does not achieve any “redemption from conflict”. It imposes a mandatory hierarchy of ends, which is the one subscribed to by the self-­declared “virtuous”. And it represses anything which takes a different position. That is not all. The material basis of individualism consists of private property. Privately owned resources are what make individual choice possible. And this is why private property finds no place in the Platonic city. As far as Augustine is concerned, his idea was that economic activity 105  Ortega y Gasset (1933, p. 103) gave a good description of the situation: “the issue is not this or that, but the life of the person in its entirety. It is not hunger, it is not diseases […], what now becomes problematic is the very being of the subject. And, if the response to those particular problems is called a solution, the one which needs to be given to the absolute problem of personal being is called salvation, soteria”. And if there is also the prospect of an afterlife, eternal salvation is added to its worldly variety. 106  As the bearers of salvific knowledge and morality, the “just” feel themselves alien to anything belonging to the material world. They thus avoid contamination with everything which is impure.

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produced a “zero-sum game”: “You can’t have gold unless someone else loses it”,107 “the Mammon of iniquity means all worldly wealth, whenever it comes from. Whenever it is collected from, it is the Mammon of iniquity, that is, the riches of iniquity”.108 And, even though in Augustine’s writings there is no explicit prescription to abolish private property, they do contain the idea that economic activity should be subordinate to religious truth and the conception of good formulated by “the just”. In other words, while not going as far as to call for the abolition of private property, an attempt is made through religious control to suppress “plurality”. Accordingly, the diagnoses formulated by Plato and Augustine concur with each other. Individualism has private property as its material basis. And, if it is abolished or subjected to strict control, “plurality” disappears. In this way, not only does the socio-economic process perish but also political dialogue. This is the goal which is deliberately pursued by both Plato and Augustine. The abolition or the control of private property is therefore one of the means whereby individualism and voluntary cooperation can be abolished. In order to uproot “plurality”, it is not enough to expunge fallibilism. It is also necessary to strike at personal property, which is the material basis for choice. Unrelentingly hostile to individual autonomy, Plato attributed himself a monopoly of knowledge and invoked the elimination of private property. He painted the actors of Athenian democracy as “partisans”, “upholders of the most monstrous idols, themselves idols; and, being the greatest imitators and magicians, are also the worst of Sophists”.109 In Plato’s work, there is no interest in the division and limitation of power.110 And the path he indicated does not accomplish his promised “redemption”; it leads only to the cancellation of any individual choice and of free deployment of the social dynamic. Also radically hostile to individual choice, Augustine set himself the goal of eliminating every form of autonomy and free intercourse. He demanded the eradication of every form of fallibilism and the rigid control of private property. Troeltsch wrote that “the absolutely apolitical  Augustine (H), vol. 2, 32, 20–21, p. 146.  Op. cit., 113, 4–4, p. 166. 109  Op. cit., 303c. According to Plato (H, 698a), Athens was the land of “entire freedom”, i.e. unbridled freedom. 110  Plato (B), 303a. 107 108

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character of this Christian policy” is “patent”.111 And Sternberger argued that in Augustine there is a conception which wants to be “apolitical, non-­ political, in that it is anti-political, or rather eschatological”.112 Yes, the Augustinian project asserts its own will to “save” man. But what it really brings about is the repression of any form of social intercourse and voluntary cooperation. In a later paragraph (6) we shall see what the “cures” of Plato and Augustine actually produce.

2.4   The “myth of Sparta”, the “Christian Sparta” and the “Kingdom of God without God” As we know, Plato was the main contributor to the creation of the “myth of Sparta”, the belief that the city was the place of possible virtue.113 It is significant that George Grote wrote that, despite having “begun his career with the confessed ignorance and the philosophical negative of Sokrates”, Plato eventually came to embrace the “peremptory, dictatorial affirmative of Lykurgus”.114 And it is well known that the “great legislator” of Sparta “goes to Delphi to consult Apollo there; which having done, and offered his sacrifice, he returned with the renewed oracle, in which he is called beloved of God, and rather God than man; that his prayers were heard, that his laws should be the best, and the commonwealth which observed them the most famous in the world”.115 Obviously, the connection with the divinity provided Lycurgus a “privileged point of view on the world” and the religious legitimation of his actions. The Spartan model was extremely useful for Plato. Ollier stated that, “if Plato had not had the example of Sparta to guide him, he would not have been able to conceive” his paradigm.116 Sparta provided him with an indication of a habitat where individualism failed to take root.117 And yet, as  Troeltsch (1963), p. 137.  Sternberger (1978), vol. 1, p. 312. 113  As we know, Plato (I, 320b) acknowledged the antecedence of the Cretan constitution, going as far as to write that Minos “ordinated for his people those very laws, which have made Crete happy through the length of time, and Sparta happy also, since she began to use them; for they are divine”. The expression “myth of Sparta” is here used in the connotation suggested by Ollier, in his comprehensive two-volume work (1933, 1943). 114  Grote (1867), vol. 1, p. XI. 115  Plutarco (A, 5, 4). 116  Ollier (1933), p. 236. 117  Plato (F), 492a. 111 112

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Ollier also emphasised, in order to make the “materials” which he borrowed from Spartan reality properly his own, Plato imbued them with a “new spirit”.118 To that design he added conversion, the re-socialisation of man, englobed inside a salvific creed, that is, inside the promise of the end to all “evil”.119 This is why he expressed the requirement that the warrior not be a representative of the old divinities; but be instead a philosopher, the bringer of definitive purification.120 Plutarch described Sparta as “a sort of camp”.121 And this is just one of the aspects of Spartan life, since the military, political and religious dimensions were closely interwoven. Nevertheless, Plato was thinking of something more, a reality which would add to these features the supreme realisation of virtue on earth: an idea which later was to be reformulated by Augustine. As Troeltsch clearly pointed out, Augustine “felt a strong attraction for monastic life”.122 And he believed that the whole of society should be transformed into a monastery. But if virtue is to be compulsory the upshot is that militarisation is inevitable. The monk becomes a monk-­ warrior123; he takes the place of Plato’s “philosopher-warrior” and performs the same tasks, driven by his salvific knowledge to act and repress any expression of diversity. Guglielmo Ferrero wrote that “for ten centuries, ancient civilization tirelessly worked to create the State [to be] wise, humane, generous, free and just […]. And this wondrous effort over so many centuries and on the part of so many geniuses ended up in the third century of our era, in the [… worst] chaos ever seen”.124 This is where Christianity intervened and legitimated public power making a new order possible. As the religious bulwark for the imperator felix, the Church had to renounce earthly salvation and set its sights solely on the heavenly form. The representatives of God, who held a monopoly over revelation, became the coercive measure of all things. They however were forced at the same time to live within two territories: one relating to the legitimation of public power, which generated a contaminating relationship; and the other constituted by the relationship with the faithful, where they continued to proclaim the salvific  Ollier (1933), p. 236.  Plato (F), 501e. 120  Op. cit., 503d. 121  Plutarch (A), 24, 1. 122  See note 202 in Chap. 1. 123  The expression “monk-warrior” is from Pellicani (1995), p. 118. 124  Ferrero (1988), pp. 76–77. 118 119

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“virtues” which could open the doors of heaven: two territories and two truths.125 But later “contamination” also spread to the devout. When divinity and its representatives are the measure of all things, believers must “act accordingly: instead of justifying them to each other, [… their] actions [… must] be referred to [… their] absolute life in God, so that they must live in every moment placed beyond earthly life and nature and thus trans-live in the form of eternity. Man, as a natural being, confronted by the natural world, dies”.126 This is a complete reversal of the “ancient point of view”.127 And it is an “arbitrary exclusion”.128 It is an extremist form of life, which aims at denying reality. But reality always reaffirms its own irrepressible “rights”.129 In other words, the human condition has its uninfringeable needs. And this leads each person to regain possession of their capacity for exploration. If what counts is imminent salvation, then “revelation contains all that […] is needed”130; man and his everyday condition have no citizenship. If however salvation is not imminent, then one has to come to terms with reality, about which revelation tells us little or nothing. The (specifically human) pursuit of answers to everyday problems in this way regains its space or at least a part of it. This “second way”, according to Étienne Gilson, is the one which gradually came to prevail as the thirteenth century approached.131 Gilson himself attributes the merit of all this to scholastic philosophy.132 But this is a point which requires critical investigation. Rodney Stark argued that capitalism “was evolved, beginning early in the ninth century, by Catholic monks who, despite having put aside worldly things, were seeking to ensure the economic security of their monastic estates”.133 And he added: “Even more remarkable is the fact that as they developed capitalism, these devout Christians found it necessary to reformulate fundamental doctrines to make their faith compatible

 Cf. also Settembrini (1974), pp. 102–103.  Ortega (1933), p. 120. 127  Op. cit., p. 77. 128  Ibid. 129  Ibid. 130  Gilson (1922), p. 147. 131  Ibid. 132  Op. cit., pp. 148–9. 133  Stark (2005), p. 55. 125 126

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with their economic progress”.134 Stark stated all of this in support of the thesis that it was Christianity which led to capitalism. But his own acknowledgement of the need to “reformulate fundamental doctrines”, which Gilson assigned as a merit of scholasticism, points in a completely different direction. It means the exact opposite: it was the rise of capitalism which forced the Church to a “retreat”, to abandon territories which it had occupied or at least to make a show of having done so.135 Here we should not overlook the fact that “feudal anarchy” was the cradle of capitalist mode of production.136 It was in this habitat that there took place what Lewis Munford called “the great heresy of the Middle Ages”, a heresy “nourished in the very bosom of the Church” and which almost from the outset “had the protection of Papacy”, “because of the vast amount of property and income it commanded”.137 In other words: “The official Church could not oppose capitalism without threatening itself with a loss of practical power and a loss of human influence”.138 Thus, was there brought about an instrumental use of the world which, as such, led to no relinquishment of the primacy of faith. In fact, it is significant that Pope Innocent III saw the Magna Charta as a “base and shameful”, “unlawful and unjust” agreement. He went so far as to write: “we firmly reject and condemn such agreement and, under threat of ex-­ communication, order the king not to dare to comply with it and that the barons and their accomplices not request it to be complied with, and this charter with all its obligations and guarantees […] is by us declared null and void of any validity forever”.139 And Thomas Aquinas stated that, in  Ibid.  It is in this light that we need to interpret not only the work of scholastic philosophy, but also the output of late scholasticism: from Francisco de Vitoria to Luis de Molina and Juan de Mariana. Their contribution to the development of economic theory does not derive from the original principles of their religious doctrine, but from the need to understand the functioning of the rising capitalist world. It is therefore necessary to critically assess the work of Chafuen (1986) who, in attributing to the late scholastics a position in tune with the market economy, completely evades the underlying issue. This being that “social ethics applicable to earthly life can never be derived from words of the Gospels” (Mises 1981, p. 380). 136  This thesis was developed in an exemplary manner by Adam Smith. For the relevant references, see note 229 in Chap. 3. Cf. also Infantino (2008), pp. 39–66. 137  Mumford (1944), pp. 159–60 138  Op. cit., p. 160. 139  Letter to the faithful, written at Anagni, 24 August 1215, collected in Musca (1973), p. 94. Since the “lordship of the kingdom is due to the Roman Church”, King John, “could and should not have, without our specific mandate, changed anything within it so as to be to 134 135

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relation to those things which belong to the Christian truth, “we should advert to the fact that all the teachings […] set forth are reduced to certain articles” of faith, because “faith has to do with truths that surpass the comprehension of reason”.140 This is equivalent to a refusal of the process of secularisation: because the ultimate intention is for the economic dimension, social relationships, public power and every moment of life to be placed under permanent religious jurisdiction, the independent variable to which every aspect of life must be submitted. Nonetheless, seen from the point of view of the original anti-­ individualistic message, the use of the world is still an intolerable “perversion”. Hence the inevitable “rebellions”. “Tension” is already present in the “historical origin of Christianity as a Jewish messianic movement”.141 But the compromise with intrawordly life made that tension erupt.142 According to Voegelin, the case of Joachim of Fiore can be considered the “first and clear and comprehensive expression” of the return of the salvific project. And although there exist other episodes (which also ended in

our detriment” (Ibid.). This was the reasoning advanced by Innocent III for his rejection of the Magna Charta. There is obviously a claim for the original sovereignty of the Roman Church, the power of which descends directly from God and the assignment of the King to the position of a “delegate”, who as such cannot act outside the remit of the powers delegated to him. This is the “doctrine of the two swords” (dating back to Gelasius), which was later dismantled with the rise of the modern State by the separation between politics and religion. 140  Thomas Aquinas (1952), p. 308. In order to fully appreciate Thomas’s position, it is worthwhile reading the following passage (1978, p. 157): “In regard to heretics two points must be kept in mind. The first with regard to heretics themselves. The second with regard to the Church. From the point of view of heretics themselves there is their sin, by which they have deserved not only to be separated from the Church, but to be eliminated from the world by death […]. On the part of the Church there is merciful hope of the conversion of those errors. For this reason She does not immediately condemn, ‘but only after a first and second admonition’, as the Apostle teaches. Only then, if the heretic remains pertinacious, the Church, despairing of his conversion, makes provision for the safety of others; and separating him, by the sentence of excommunication from the Church, passes him to secular judgement to be exterminated from the world by death. St. Jerome […] says, and we read: ‘The tainted flesh must be cut away, and the infected sheep cast out from the fold’[…]”. 141  Voegelin (2000), p. 175. 142  Op. cit., p. 178.

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bloodshed), it is with the Reformation that anti-individualism and the idea of redemption on earth were most comprehensively re-affirmed.143 Luther argues that one should harbour no illusions on the “nature of man” and that one must never limit “the role of God”.144 Augustine injects his Platonism into him and provides him with the answer he needs.145 Luther considers Aristotle a “spinner of fables”; he opposes the Spirit to the Law and speaks of “regeneration by faith alone”.146 He states that “human reason stalks along on its stilts”; and adds: it is “most deplorable that we should attempt with our reason to defend God’s Word, whereas the Word of God is rather our defence against all our enemies, as St. Paul teaches us”.147 Calvin will later say that “only the Revelation gives us true knowledge of God”.148 Consequently, there is “but one way to life and salvation, and that is faith and certainty in the promises of God”.149 There are here debts to Plato which are extensive and amply shown.150 Léonard unhesitatingly wrote: “Calvin’s civil and ecclesiastical policy, so difficult to explain in the light of Scripture, becomes perfectly intelligible in that of the Laws and the Republic. There is the same religious foundation for the city, the same religious authorities, and the Church, through the agency of the State, applies the penalties prescribed in the Laws for unsatisfactory citizens”.151 Consequently, there is perfect consistency between Calvin’s ideas and Plato’s.152 143  Pellicani (1995, pp.  16–17) in particular mentioned the cases of John Ball and Wat Tyler, as well as Jan Hus. 144  Léonard (1965), vol. 1, p. 42. 145  Ibid. 146  Op. cit., pp. 42–3. Léonard (op. cit., p. 41) wrote, more directly: “it was to St Augustine that Luther went for his interpretation of the Scriptures, that of the Psalms in 1513, and of the Pauline doctrine for his commentary on the Letter to the Romans. And finally, it was to be from St Augustine that he derived some of the doctrines and formulas in which he delighted to clothe his own philosophy: regeneration by faith, the frailty of human nature, the supreme power of Grace, and penitence. The influence was more profound because the great Augustinian antinomies, Spirit and Letter, Grace and Liberty, Gospel and Law, were admirably suited to his temperament and experience”. 147  Luther (1915), p. 347. 148  Léonard (1965), vol. 1, p. 297. 149  Calvin (2005), p. 40. 150  Boisset (1959), pp. 277–282. 151  Léonard (1965), vol. 1, pp. 304–5. 152  Op. cit., p. 305.

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This is why the programme to uproot individualism and build a community of the virtuous was not just hurled against Athens. It was also used against the modern re-affirmation of the freedom of choice. The case of Thomas Müntzer, the “wretched masquerade” of the Anabaptist community of Münster and the “great rebellion” of the Puritan Cromwell are manifestations of it.153 To use an expression of Walzer, all of them had as their goal the creation of a “Christian Sparta”.154 If Plato, as we have pointed out, imbued Spartan collectivism with a “new spirit”, the same process was carried out by Platonic Christianity. In this way, there was identified a level of annihilation of individual freedom which Lycurgus would never had been able to reach: because the divinity he used to legitimate public power did not have the requisite strength. “Between man and the entities of mythology there was only a difference of a quantitative nature, which allowed continuity between the human and the divine”.155 There is more to it. Descartes, “the genius of simplification, simplification made a person”,156 wrote: “without doubt all that I conceive, I ­conceive as it must be, and it is not possible that I deceive myself therein.  “Wretched masquerade” is an expression used by Sternberger (1978, vol. 1, p. 294).  Walzer (1965), p.  305. Walzer (op. cit., p.  30) stated: “Sure that the saints will not always and everywhere impose their discipline upon the fallen world, Calvin describes and justifies a purely secular repression. And he argues that this repression, brutal and bloody as it must be, nevertheless represents a considerable gain for a humanity alienated from God”. “Puritan zeal was not a private passion; it was instead a highly collective emotion and it imposed upon the saints a new and impersonal discipline […]. The conscientious activity that they favoured is perhaps best revealed in Cromwell’s New Army Model, with its rigid camp discipline, its elaborate rules against every imaginable sin, from looting and rapine to blasphemy and card-playing” (op. cit., pp.  12–13). As Cromwell himself wrote, “in the poor Army […] the great God has vouchsafed to appear” (Cromwell 1904, vol. 1, p. 397). The Army consists of “an aristocracy of grace, whose divinely appointed destiny is to conquer and rule the world” (Woodhouse 1951, p.  81). This means that freedom is exclusively of the Saints. And this is why Hasso Hofmann (1999, p. 13) wrote: “not only from the Catholic tradition, but also from the Reformed doctrines, there is non direct way which leads to the modern declarations of human rights. Christian freedom is freedom only in and from the truth of the faith. Correspondingly, the Christian is considered free and the non-Christian not free, whatever the social or legal status either of them have. Christian freedom is equality before God. But it distinguishes between truth and error and knows no equality between claims and truth”. It is significant that Hume (1903, p. 53) saw in Cromwell the real “absolute” monarch, a case which could be “sufficient to convince us that such a person will never resign his power, or establish any free government”. On the hostility of the Reformation to individualism, see also Mises (1978, pp. 39–42). 155  Ortega (1933), p. 98. Schwartz (1966, p. 143) himself stated that Greek ascetism “did not take the shape of that of the Christian hermits, as a battle against their sinful flesh”. 156  Ortega (1933), p. 109. 153 154

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Whence, then, do my errors spring? Merely from the fact that the will, being much ampler and more extended than the understanding, I do not confine it within the same limits, but extend it also to things which I do not understand; and being itself indifferent to these, it is very easily led astray, and chooses the false for the true, and evil for good. In this way I deceive myself, and sin”.157 Descartes also came out with an unfortunate eulogy of Sparta: “to speak of human things, I believe that, if Sparta was formerly flourishing, it was not because of the excellence of each of its laws […], but because that, having been invented by one man alone, they all had the same object in view”.158 In other words, the idea of a certain and absolute truth, which we can all reach and which only our wickedness can prevent us from possessing, leads to the presumption of being able to construct a perfect social order.159 Thus, was the Spartan model brought back onto the scene. And in this case too it was imbued with that “new spirit” which claims it can reshape man and the world. In the phase preceding the French revolution, the Spartan formula was very frequently invoked.160 Rousseau spoke of Sparta as a “Republic of demi-Gods rather than of men”.161 He urged “to begin by purging the threshing floor and setting aside all the old materials, as Lykurgus did in Sparta, in order afterwards to erect a good Building”.162 He argued that all the sciences, arts and luxury are no more than the product of “idleness” and “vanity”.163 He did not fail to praise Plato.164 And he saw in Athens a  Descartes (1901b), p. 180. According to Ortega (1960, p. 401), Descartes experienced the “discovery of the method” as a “divine gift”, a “transcendent revelation”. 158  Descartes (1901a), p. 15. 159  Hayek (1988) aptly spoke of “fatal conceit”. 160  For an extensive list of the supporters of the “spirit of Sparta”, see Rawson (1969), Guerci (1979), Infantino (2003). 161  Rousseau (1997a), p. 11. 162  Rousseau (1997b), p. 175. Obviously, this is influenced by Fénelon (1847) who, for his Salento, took his inspiration from the Crete of Minos and the Sparta of Lycurgus. 163  Rousseau (1997a), p. 18. The theme of luxury will be dealt with in the next chapter. It however is appropriate to point out that here too Rousseau (op. cit., p. 19) was influenced by Fénelon (1847). As is known, Rousseau commented ironically on Voltaire, whose ideas on luxury were opposite to his own. On Voltaire and Rousseau, see Gouhier (1983). Cassirer (2000, p. 103) aptly wrote that, “in the middle of the Enlightenment, Rousseau raises his flaming invective against the ‘arts and sciences’ […, so that] all the values of culture are phantoms that we must renounce”. It is a rebellion against civilization. As Cassirer (1967, p. 96) further argued, Rousseau is “far from wishing to create room in his social and political ideal” for any “subjective inclination”, in other words he does not wish to allow any individual choice. On the subject, see also Bedeschi (2010). 164  Rousseau (1997a), p. 19. 157

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“most tyrannical aristocracy, governed by learned men and orators”.165 Mably described Lycurgus as “the wisest of men”, who with his work gave Greece “six centuries of prosperity”.166 As Talmon wrote, “the Jacobins took from Mably, not less than from Rousseau, their idea of virtuous, egalitarian happiness. On the very eve of Thermidor, Saint-Just brings with him copies of Mably to the Committee of Public safety, and distributes them among his colleagues, the other dictators of Revolutionary France, in order to win them over definitively for his plan of enthroning virtue, and thereby completing and insuring the regeneration of the French people, and the emergence of a new type of society”.167 If one considers only the gap between the position of Rousseau and that held by the Encyclopaedists, this all becomes clearer: “What Voltaire, d’Alembert, Diderot regarded as mere defects of society, as mere mistakes in organization which must be gradually eliminated, Rousseau saw rather as the guilt of society”.168 “The individual as such, as he emerges from the hands of nature, is not yet involved in the antithesis of good an evil”.169 “Selfish love, which contains the cause of all future depravity and fosters man’s vanity and thirst of power, is exclusively to be charged to society”.170 Removing from God the “burden of responsibility and putting it on human society”, Rousseau gave his “solution” to the “theodicy

 Rousseau (1997c), p. 8.  Mably (1767), pp. 183–4. Therefore, it is not surprising that Rousseau and Mably were both criticized by Constant (1988), in his well-known essay comparing the liberty of the Ancients with that of Moderns. As we know, Constant considered the Athens of Pericles as the place where freedom of choice was first affirmed. The controversy, which in eighteenth century France opposed the supporters of the Spartan model and those of the Athenian model, shall be discussed in the next chapter. 167  Talmon (1952), pp. 64–5. 168  Cassirer (1967), p. 71. In relation to the Encylopaedists, Cassirer (op. cit., p. 66) also specified: “Everywhere a genuine and strong will to reform was at work; everywhere the most unsparing criticism was exercised on the Old Regime. And yet this will to reform neither explicity nor implicity rose to revolutionary demands. The thinkers of the Encyclopedist circle wanted to ameliorate and to cure; but hardly one of them believed in the necessity for, or in the possibility of, a radical transformation and reformation of state and society. They were satisfied when they succeeded in eliminating the worst abuses and in leading mankind gradually into better political conditions”. Even before Cassirer, this had been pointed out by Hubert (1923, 1928) Israel (2009, p. 232) recently stated that “the anti-Enlightenment purge hugely intensified once the Terror began”. 169  Cassirer (1967), p. 75. 170  Ibid. 165 166

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problem”.171 He “found himself inwardly bound and rooted in religion”.172 He “took up the old battle for the justification of God”.173 He “carried it beyond the realm of metaphysics and placed it in the center of ethics and politics”.174 And in this way he dug a deep divide between himself and the Encyclopaedists. Voltaire, d’Alembert and Diderot felt “something uncanny in Rousseau’s nature”.175 On the evening of their last meeting, Diderot wrote: he “makes me uneasy […] and I feel as if a damned soul stood beside me […]. I never want to see that man again; he could make me believe in devils and Hell”.176 Cassirer remarked: “Such was the impression Rousseau made on the spiritual leaders of the French Enlightenment”.177 Therefore, one can understand the reason why, even when they did not declare themselves representatives of God, the “redeemers” still used a message which was intimately religious. In this way, the idea of salvation transformed human reason into pure projective logic. And claimed it could bring about the realisation of what Voegelin termed a “counter-­ existential dream”.178 A “new spirit” was conferred upon Spartan despotism. And the extremist phase of the French Revolution produced developments which were the precursors of the events of the twentieth Century.179 In relation to that phase, Tocqueville significantly wrote: “the ideal of the French Revolution set before it was not merely a change in the French social system but nothing short of a regeneration of the whole  Op. cit., p. 76.  Op. cit., p. 73. 173  Ibid. 174  Op. cit., p. 76. 175  Op. cit., p. 91. 176  Ibid. 177  Ibid. 178  Voegelin (2000). 179  This is why Ferrero (1986, pp. 121–122) identified not one, but “two French revolutions”, the one of 1789 and the revolution of 18 Brumaire, which in actual fact started on 2 June 1793: “The coup of 2 June was an event of an incalculable impact. It marked the definitive failure of the first French revolution: the revolution of 1789, […] of Mirabeau and Talleyrand, who had tried to give France a representative government based on a regime of political freedom. The second revolution was about to begin and it would be the negation of the first, the revolution of 1799 and of 18 Brumaire, the Constitution of year VIII and the Consulate, the revolution from which the first totalitarian government of Europe issued […]. This dualism of revolutions is still tearing the world apart one hundred and fifty years later. The current struggle is only its extension. The Anglo-Saxons fight for the revolution of 1789 and the totalitarian regimes for the revolution of 1799”. 171 172

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human race. It created an atmosphere of missionary fervor and, indeed, assumed all the aspects of a religious revival – much to the consternation of contemporary observers. It would perhaps be truer to say that it developed into a species of religion, if a singularly imperfect one, since it was without a God, without a ritual or promise of a future life. Nevertheless, this strange religion has […] overrun the whole world with its apostles, militants and martyrs”.180 “Little by little”, the masses “estranged them from the here-and-now. Turning away from the real world around them, they indulged in dreams of a far better one and ended up by living, spiritually, in the ideal world thought up by the writers”.181 Tocqueville also drew attention to the protagonists of that extremism: “Revolutionaries of a hitherto unknown breed came to the scene: men who carried audacity to the point of sheer insanity; who balked at no innovation and, unchecked any scruples, acted with unprecedented ruthlessness. Nor were these strange beings mere ephemera, born of a brief crisis and destined to pass away when it ended. They were, rather, the first of a new race of man who subsequently made good and proliferated in all parts of the civilized world, everyway retaining the same characteristics. They were already here when we were born, and they are still with us”.182 There is no doubt about it: Tocqueville grasped the religious “aspects” which were present in the French Revolution; and he clearly underscored its “audacity” pushed to the “point of sheer insanity”, capable of shrugging off any “scruples” and any “hesitation”. All this occurred not without a reason. That type of extremism can prevail only if what is at stake is salvation. This means that the goal of the protagonists was to reshape man and the world. There is no more God to justify the project. Nevertheless, we are inside the riverbed of Platonic-Augustinian thought, since the cause which impels to action is one and the same: the claim to be able to uproot individualism, “plurality” and voluntary cooperation. The intention therefore is to build a city of God in the name of man, or, if you prefer,  Tocqueville (1983), pp. 12–3.  Op. cit., p.146. With specific regard to the government of the Convention, it is useful to underline the opinion expressed by Ferrero (1981, p. 212): [the Convention] “jettisons the principle of democratic legitimacy and, on its ruins, erects Public Safety, as conceived by its frenetic terror: the bloodthirsty idol, the insatiable Moloch to whom it sacrifices the majority, and all of human rights, as well as the opposition and thousands of victims of beheading, drowning and grapeshot”. 182  Tocqueville (1983), p. 157. This new species of actors are the “professional revolutionaries”: see Pellicani (1975). 180 181

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a “Kingdom of God, without God”.183 This is why Michael Walzer wrote that even before the most radical representatives of the French Revolution came to the fore, the ideas of the Puritans imbued the programmes of the “proto-Jacobins”.184 And Voegelin went as far as to state that “the totalitarianism of our times must be understood as journey’s end of the Gnostic search for a civil theology”.185 This is all spectacularly exhibited by Marxism, which presented “bourgeois” social relations as a zero-sum game, on account of the perverse institution of private property.186 According to Marx, communism is the “solution to the riddle of history”, “the genuine solution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man. It is the true solution of the struggle between existence and essence, between objectivation and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and species”.187 This is how all social conflict is erased and the “Realm of Freedom” is built.188 One must only be aware of this and have the strength to carry out what God did not do.189 For Hitler, too, it is a zero-sum game. Conflict, however, is not between “classes”, but between “races” or “nations”.190 The “redeemer” changes, but the goal remains the same: the creation of a “new kind of man”.191 In the same Hitlerian terms, man must carry out a “divine” enterprise, such as to allow the

 Loewith (1949), p. 42.  Walzer (1965), pp.  304–305. Puritan radicalism, that is, leads to Jacobin radicalism. Bernstein (1930, p. 10) wrote: “[The] Girondists were the Presbyterians; [… the] Jacobins or the Mountain were the Independents; [… the] Hébertists and Babeuvists were the Levellers, whilst Cromwell was a combination of Robespierre and Bonaparte”. 185  Voegelin (2000), p. 221. 186  Social relations are “antagonistic”; that is, they create the conditions for the outbreak of “revolution”, which is exactly a civil war. 187  Marx (1984b), p. 89. 188  Communism thus produces “redemption from conflict”, it delivers humankind from the “wicked”. This is the basic belief which Marxian preaching tries to instill. The economic mechanisms, which with “iron necessity” cause the collapse of the capitalist system, are only the instrument, devoid of any scientific basis, through which a prophecy which should be self-fulfilling is erected; Cf. Infantino (1998, p. 56). 189  Marx (1984b), p. 79. 190  Nazism inherited from the Younger German historical school of economics the idea that relations between nations are “antagonistic”. See Schmoller (1897). 191  Cf. Hitler’s speech at the opening of the House of German Art in Munich (July 18, 1937), in Sax and Kuntz (1992), pp. 224–32. 183 184

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establishment of a “thousand-year Reich”,192 in which money is no longer the exclusive lord of life.193 Not unreasonably, Voegelin saw in “Hitler’s millennial prophecy” a transcription of “Joachitic speculation, mediated in Germany through the Anabaptist wing of the Reformation and through Johannine Christianity of Fichte”.194 In Marxism and National-socialism there is therefore a salvific knowledge which ensures the accomplishment of the “counter-existential dream”. Benefiting from a “higher” morality,195 the “faithful” live a situation of radical “separateness”. They are totally estranged from the existent and legitimated in any action. It is a call to the final battle. The new must be produced by the “holy” erasing of what has been.196 The only survivors will be the “virtuous”, who, at the slightest suspicion of diversity, will “clean” the canvas. With regard to the specific matter of private property, the source of “perversion”, Marxism and Nazism follow the known models. Marxism foresaw its elimination: it equates the end of personal property with the “end of economy”.197 Nazism instead used the path of extremely extensive 192  The expressions in inverted commas are exactly the ones Hitler used in a famous interview and are reported in Calic (1971), p. 68. For a deeper analysis of the issue, the reader is referred to Pellicani (2009) and the vast bibliography provided therein. 193  Hitler (1941), p. 907. 194  Voegelin (2000), p. 180. 195  It is significant that Ernst Bloch, a thinker “who was generally considered a Marxist, or in any case passed off as one” (Sternberger 1978, vol. 1, p. 277), wrote that “the civitas Dei is triumphant when the earthly State goes to the devil, the devil whom it belongs to” (quoted by Sternberger 1978, vol. 1, p. 356). 196  As we have already said, such a project has a prevalently nihilistic character. Kolakowski (1977, p. 12) rightly spoke of a promise of “liberation through negation”. Fisichella (1987, p. 70) argued that the totalitarian project is what it is because it “wants to change the totality”; and added: “the basic political assumption […] is to erase the existent and build an entirely original city”. It is no accident that Ferrero (1898, p. 65) saw in the late nineteenth century German Social Democratic organization a kind of “State within the State”, which had in propaganda “a colossal, tireless dredge” which could constantly clean out the minds of believers (op. cit., pp. 65–69). On Kautsky and German Social Democracy, see Settembrini’s outstanding analysis (1974). 197  Engels (1939, p. 318) wrote: “The seizure of the means of production by society put an end to commodities production and therewith to the domination of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by conscious organization on a planned basis. The struggle for individual existence comes to an end”. The condition of scarcity is thus envisioned as a “bourgeois” creation. This point of view was expressed by Bucharin (1971, p. 11) in the following terms: “as soon as we look at an organized social economy, all fundamental ‘problems’ of political economy […] vanish”. On the “end of economy”, see

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“control”. This is why Mises rightly remarked that the Nazi regime maintained individual property of means of production only “seemingly and nominally”.198 Mises also described the situation as follows: economic operators “do the buying and selling, pay the workers, contract debts, and pay interest and amortization. There is no labor market; wages and salaries are fixed by the government. The government tells the shop managers what and how to produce, at what prices and from whom to buy, at what prices and to whom to sell. The government decrees to whom and under what terms the capitalists must entrust their funds and where and at what wages laborers must work. Market exchange is only a sham. All the prices, wages, and interest rates are fixed by the central authority. They are prices, wages and interest rates in appearance only; in reality they are merely determinations of quantity relations in the government’s orders”.199 Additionally, if Marx declared that, once private property is abolished, “the empirical essence of Judaism, the market ant its presuppositions” are extinguished, so that “the Jew becomes impossible”,200 the Nazi control of property also had the same goal: to make the Jew “impossible”, that is,

Ricossa (2006). It remains however to be emphasized that Marx (1976, vol. 3, pp. 958–9) was very much aware of the impossibility of doing away with scarcity: “The realm of freedom really begins only where labour determined by necessity and external expediency ends; it lies by its very nature beyond the sphere of material production proper. Just as the savage must wrestle with nature to satisfy his needs, to maintain and reproduce his life, so must civilized man, and he must do so in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production”. 198  Mises (1981, p. 485; 1969a, p. 56; 1998), p. 6. The generalized system of interventionism established by Nazism obviously allowed “regime profits” to be made, profits, that is, which were obtained through the “protection” and connivance of public power. This does not, however, mean that National Socialism was in favour of the market. See also Barkai (1990, p. 248). And in any case Bettelheim (1971, vol. 1, p. 67) was also forced at least to recognize that under Nazism “the right” of capital to be freely invested was “greatly limited”. Hilferding (1947, p. 299) explained: “It is the essence of a totalitarian state that it subjects the economy to its aims. The economy is deprived of its own laws, it becomes a controlled economy. Once this control is effected, it transforms the market economy into a consumers’ economy. The character and extent of needs are then determined by the state. The German and Italian economies provide evidence of the fact that such control, once initiated in a totalitarian state, spreads rapidly and tends to become all-embracing as was the case in Russia from the very beginning”. In reference to Fascism, see in particular Settembrini (2001). 199  Mises (1981), p. 485; 1969a, p. 56; b; 1998, p. 6. 200  Marx (1984a, p. 62).

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the functioning of an economy based on individual choice201; to which was added also the imperative of the physical elimination of the Jews. In both cases, there is an arbitrary identification of Judaism with the market. Already in 1920, Bertrand Russell wrote that “the parallel is extraordinarily exact between Plato’s Republic and the Bolshevik régime”.202 And in later years Russell also added that such was Plato’s “artistic skill that Liberals never noticed his reactionary tendencies until his disciples Lenin and Hitler had supplied them with a practical exegesis”.203

2.5   The Machiavellianism of the Utopian-Totalitarian Project The route suggested by the advocates of the utopian-totalitarian project does not lead to the erasing of the political dimension of life and the extinction of conflict. Scarcity impels us to cooperate. Cooperation assigns  Evola (1981, p. 39) wrote: “the Jew was equated with those who have money as their only […]. The struggle against the Jew, against the Saujude, placed as the lynch-pin in the construction of the Third Kingdom, was confused with the struggle against the most characteristic aspects of modern economic and intellectual decadence, against all those things which, through different but converging paths, tried to stifle the ancient values of quality, dignity, honour, disinterest, race and aristocracy: it was confused essentially with the struggle against the civilization of the merchant and the usurer”. 202  Russell (1962), pp. 28–29. 203  Russell (1947), pp. 12–13. What produced distortionary effects in the perception of the Soviet and Nazi regimes was the fact that the former portrayed itself as internationalist and the latter as nationalist. Internationalism is an element which Marx took from liberal culture. And Spengler (1924, p. 2) vigorously suggested the need to “free German socialism from Marx”. Russell (1962, p.  29) also wrote that Bolshevism “is internally aristocratic”. It is consequently surprising that Gomperz (1905, vol. 3, p. 106) ruled out the possibility of seeing Plato as a “forerunner of the modern socialists and communists”. He stated that these “modern movements strive to obtain for the community as a whole”, while “Plato proposed to enact merely for his upper or ruling class of warriors and guardians” (ibid.). Gomperz did not realize that, even when collectivism is justified by egalitarian ideologies, it is always accompanied by the resort to a “privileged point of view on the world”, a knowledge possessed aristocratically by an elite which thus takes over the authoritative roles. It should also be said that Durkheim (1958, p. 15) made a clear distinction between modern socialism and the Platonic utopia, maintaining that “it is not possible that a social organization, conceived in contemplation of the industrial societies we actually have under our eyes, could have been imagined when these societies had not yet been born”. It escaped Durkheim’s notice that behind the industrial development of the West stands the rise of the market. And Plato was hostile to private property, the market and democracy: institutions which originate, develop and die together. Durkheim’s “oversight” is particularly serious, because he should at least have taken into account Constant’s lesson on Athenian democracy. 201

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differing positions to us. These positions have differing degrees of freedom. And we strive to defend or to extend the scope of our autonomy. Under these circumstances, private property is nothing other than the attempt to respond, by means of a set of regulating principles, to the problem of the conflict generated by the limited availability of material resources.204 This means that abolishing private property does not change the condition of scarcity in which human beings find themselves. In other words, it is in any case necessary to give some answer to the conflict. Social hierarchisation is not the product of the exclusive scarcity of material resources. The intersubjective relationship impinges on every dimension of life. And, even if it were possible to eliminate material scarcity, differing coefficients of need or urgency would in any case be produced in other areas of social interaction. The source of power, of superordination and subordination, that is, is inexhaustible. Accordingly, conflict is inextinguishable. The diagnosis formulated by the advocates of the project of “redemption” is a complete distortion of reality. For it posits that personal property generates scarcity (power and conflict), while in fact it is the scarcity of material resources that makes a necessity of private property, which is thus a means to limit the power of each and to reduce conflict. This is equivalent to saying that the supporters of the utopian-totalitarian programme turn the causal connection on its head. And then, as we have already shown, they proceed to define the general through the particular; that is, they make every type of hierarchisation and conflict descend from private property.205 They also fail to shed light on the effects their programme has on public power. Namely that if private property is abolished, then the state apparatus is entrusted with all the decisions which, in a system based on personal property, are taken privately by multitudes of actors; and, if one subjects property to rigid controls, one must resort to systematic and hugely extensive intervention on the part of state structures. What happens therefore is that in each case the problem of scarcity, when removed from (voluntary) social cooperation, has to be solved by public power, through coercive cooperation. There is not just the “adulteration” of the diagnosis, therefore. There is also the fact that the cure, by placing everything in public hands, makes it impossible for the ruled to supervise the rulers. This does not reduce or  See note 108 in Chap. 1.  In this way, they commit an obvious logical error. See Chap. 1, note 110.

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eliminate the level of “political exploitation”; it escalates it to a point of frenzy. It is no accident that Plato declared that in the republic he yearned for, it was necessary to resort to lying. His words are stark and troubling: “the rulers of the State are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the State”.206 It is a very short step from here to move to legitimating him who holds public power as a “just assassin”.207 The idea of “redemption” on earth is thus the “cover” for an extremist design, around which one can harbour no illusions.208 Some “oversights” in this connection can only cause surprise. In referring to utopian societies (and what is said can thus be extended to any utopian-totalitarian design), Ralf Dahrendorf wrote that “Utopian societies may be and, indeed, often are caste societies; but they are not class societies in which the oppressed revolt against their oppressors”.209 Dahrendorf also stated that in these societies one does not find parliaments “in which organized groups advance their conflicting claims for power”.210 But there is nothing strange: because the supporters of these programmes interpret their own plans as the means through which to bring about the disappearance of the political dimension and the consequent elimination of every form of conflict. And, even when they foresee the survival of some form of hierarchy, they portray it as something “natural”, deriving from a re-appropriation of “true  Plato (F), 389b.  The term “just assassin” is Sternberger’s (1978, vol. 1, p. 288). 208  Despite having stated that “a constitution founded on the greatest possible human freedom, according to laws which enable the freedom of each individual to exist by the side of the freedom of others […], is […] a necessary idea”, Kant (1922, p. 257) wrote that it was wise to explore the Platonic project, thus showing that he did not have the slightest understanding of how foreign that project was to his political philosophy. Basing himself on Kant, Cassirer (1944, p. 86) also argued that “the great mission of Utopia is to make room for the possible as opposed to a passive acquiescence in the present state of affairs”. And he specified (op. cit., p. 85) that “the great political and social reformers are indeed constantly under the necessity of treating the impossible as though it were possible”. Cassirer failed to appreciate the true character of utopia, which is not just a simple social reform, but a plan to reshape man and existence. The reformer tries to correct a mistake. The utopian tries to remake the world: and this has no connection with the improvement of the conditions of individual and social life. Along the same lines, Ruyer (1950, p.  125) wrote that “the utopian exercise among the ruled is a good antidote to the propaganda and ideology imposed by the rulers”. But one can easily object to Ruyer that it is not the “utopian exercise” which protects the ruled, but rather the limitation of power they impose on rulers. 209  Dahrendorf (1958), p. 116. 210  Ibid. 206 207

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human nature” which had been corrupted by the appearance of private property or by a more generic “fall”. Hence the “mask” of Unity, Love and Harmony, that is, the advent of “a society of camrades”, where power and conflict no longer have any place211: “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”,212 “the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things”.213 As Mises however pointed out, those who claim that there are irreconcilable interests between nations, races or classes need to explain why, once private property is eliminated or subjected to extreme limitation, the irreparability of conflict and every other form of superordination or subordination should cease to exist214; but this is something which is never done. And it is never mentioned that, after private property is eliminated or “controlled”, what always prevails, even inside the select class, race or nation, is the fact of belonging to the faction of those with the most “purity”, “devoutness” and “goodness”, who are tasked with prescribing the content of other people’s lives and “cleaning” the world from “wickedness”, which really means any discrepancy with the will of those who hold the levers of public power at the time.215 Thus, the advocates of the utopian-totalitarian project hold two patently untrue theses. The first is that the elimination of private property (which underpins voluntary cooperation) creates grand Harmony. The second is that voluntary cooperation is the source of an irreconcilable conflict; but the simple fact of realising that living together with others always means making our actions co-adapt (in order to achieve mutual advantages) leads us to understand that free cooperation, as it takes place on a voluntary basis, rules out the irreconcilability of conflict. Arguing the opposite case 211  The expression “a society of comrades” is taken from Bucharin and Preobrazenskij (1966, p. 114). 212  Marx and Engels (1984), p. 238. 213  Engels (1939), p. 315. 214  Mises (1981), pp. 279–91. 215  This means that, whatever circumstances co-exist, the clash remains the one foreshadowed by the Platonic-Augustinian design, i.e. that between the City of Good and the City of Evil. The Marxian idea that the collapse of the system would be brought about by the irreparable conflict caused by the simultaneous occurrence of a falling rate of profit and growing impoverishment, is a plain lie, transcribed into the language of economic theory. The Marxian announcement has the aim of disseminating a notion which has to be believed. The goal is to fuel the polarization between two opposing sides, where nostridad embodies the principle of Good and alteridad the principle of Evil. See Infantino (1998), p. 55. The positions held by Lenin and Hitler were no different: the clash must be the “final solution”.

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again means turning reality on its head as well as getting the causal relationship the wrong way round: because what makes conflict irreconcilable is not individual autonomy (which is equated with “perversion”); it is instead the extremism contained in the message of salvation, which transforms every intercourse into a holy war. If we want, we can give this “dynamic” the name of “Tocqueville’s problem”. The French thinker was particularly aware of the reconcilability of interests and clearly showed that the irreparability of conflict is brought about by the plan to reshape man and the world. This uproots intercourse as regulated by law and institutionalises a permanent war to exterminate anything which, in fact or in the imagination of the “virtuous”, is out of line with what they prescribe.216 Thus, the so-called redemption from conflict produces only, and systematically, the repression of conflict. And it could not be otherwise. Living together, differences in position among actors and conflict go hand in hand. When however the freedom to relate to others ceases to exist, we have a single will prescribing and repressing. And it does so with a strength which is so much greater the higher the importance of the stake (salvation). It may be useful to pause here to consider a few points. 1. The Counterfeiting of Reality  The conceit fuelling the salvific message always involves a uni-determined, or radically unilateral, construction of social reality. There is a single and exclusive “point of view on the word”, a single and mandatory scale of preferences and aversions.217 In other 216  As we know, Tocqueville (1994, pp. 121–4) laid great stress on the co-adaptability of interests, an idea which he believed to be alien to revolutionary extremism. Furet (1978, pp. 49–50) significantly wrote: “French thinkers substantially ignore the resort to the final harmony of interests and the common utility of particular conflicts; and even when they focus on economics […], as in the case of Physiocrats, they have to embody the social in an unified image, namely the rational authority of a legal despotism, because they continue to cleave to a political vision of the social”. Even though the term “harmony” is misplaced, Furet’s passage is useful in understanding “Tocqueville’s problem”. It is also worthwhile recalling that Drewermann (1991, p. 181), in referring to Christianity, stated that there is “hidden inside a pathological element, which transforms intentions” into their “opposites”. But the “pathological” element is not “hidden” at all. It resides in the very nature of the salvific project, in the idea of reshaping man and the world. Here too, therefore, we are confronted by “Tocqueville’s problem”. 217  Social reality is a product of intersubjective relations. This is an idea which was greatly emphasized by Simmel, but which is also the keystone of methodological individualism. Intersubjectivity as a constituent element of reality was extensively discussed by Schutz (1962a, b); Cf. also Berger and Luckmann (1967).

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words, there is an independent variable which determines the meaning and the value of every other variable. And everyone must submit to this determination, whether it be presented as the “gift” of God or as the “gift” of Reason.218 Thus, the social reality affirmed cannot be subjected to any correction, because one and only one “reading” is allowed. Clearly, the problem is not caused by the circumstance of a belief being made to underpin an interpretation of life and the world; it is due to the fact that this belief claims it is salvific and prevents any competition with other possible interpretations of life and of the world. In other words, we need to understand that, if social reality is the product of intersubjective relations, whatever is uni-­ determined by a belief which is absolutistically or salvifically affirmed is a counterfeiting of that reality219; and it is a counterfeiting which is systematically generated by a frenzied monopoly of truth, which is ready to use any means available to prevent the entry of competing points of view, in order to escape any possible check on its activity.220 218  As we know, Rousseau tried to identify the “general will”, understood as the “point of view of society” which is independent of the interests of individuals. The failure of this endeavour is borne out by the following statement written by Rousseau (1970, pp. 68–9) himself: “To discover the best rules of society suited to each Nation would require a superior intelligence who saw all of man’s passions and experienced none of them, who had no relation to our nature yet knew it thoroughly, whose happiness was independent of us and who was nevertheless willing to care for ours; finally, one who, preparing his distant glory in the progress of times, could work in one century and enjoy the reward in another. It would require gods to give men laws”. If however such divinities existed, there would be no individual freedom of choice. Here too one can see that Rousseau is influenced by Fénelon (1847, p. 209, italics added): “to speak freely, are not men to be pitied, for their necessary subjection to a mortal like themselves? A god only can fulfil the duties of dominion”. 219  Orwell (1949, p.  24) spoke of “reality control”, an expression which does not fully convey the idea. Nevertheless, the “Ministry of Truth” (op. cit., p. 29) presupposes precisely that reality is uni-determined. 220  Ferrero (1981, pp. 221–222) rightly argued that Napoleon Bonaparte was the first to use the press as an instrument to counterfeit social reality: “he runs the whole press like someone conducting an orchestra and he turns it into a gigantic gramophone player, which every day, for his subjects and his enemies, plays the same record: that he is the infallible and invincible one”. In corroboration of his words, Ferrero quoted the following statement by Metternich: “The newspapers for Napoleon are worth more than an army of three hundred thousand men, which would definitely be incapable of watching over the interior and scaring the exterior better than his half a dozen hired pen-pushers”. It is also worthwhile recalling that it was Napoleon who conferred a negative connotation to the term “ideologue”, using it “as a favourite expression of contempt for all who ventured to defend freedom against

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Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “With all the great deceivers there is a noteworthy occurrence to which they owe their power. In the actual act of deception, with all its preparations, its enthralling in the voice, expression and gesture, in the midst of the scenery designed to give it effect, they are overcome by belief in themselves: it is this which then speaks so miraculously and compellingly to those who surround them. The founders of religions are distinguished from these great deceivers by the fact that they never emerge from this state of self-deception: or very rarely they experience for once that moment of clarity when doubt overcomes them; usually, however, they comfort themselves by ascribing those moments of clarity to the evil antagonist. Self-deception has to exist if a grand effect is to be produced. For men believe in the truth of that which is plainly and strongly believed”.221 Nietzsche’s remarks can be extended to the supporters of the utopian-­ totalitarian design. But they only help to understand the psychological aspect of the question. It is more interesting here to dwell on what makes those phenomena possible. In other words, because it is fuelled by a uni-­ determined social reality, the utopian-totalitarian design is inherently of a counterfeiting nature. Therefore, it is a structural producer of deception, self-deception and simulation. And it uses all the means necessary to “protect” its counterfeiting of the social reality, which becomes the mere and unassailable “cover” for those who hold public power.222 It follows that the counterfeiting of reality is exclusively in the service of the rulers and their interest in occupying a position of dominion. It is the triumph of him” (Hayek 1979, p. 209). He felt “repugnance for all discussion and teaching of political matters” (op. cit., p. 210, the expression is however A.C. Thibaudeau’s). When he was able to, he eliminated or obstructed the teaching of moral and political sciences. Napoleon did not hesitate to ban the publication of the second edition of J.B. Say’s Traité d’économie politique, and Destutt de Tracy’s Commentaire sur l’esprit des lois. Making use of Ferrero (1981) once again, one could say that Napoleon, sensing the illegitimacy of his power, was “afraid” of the least signs or possibilities of opposition. And without resorting to Ferrero, one could also understand that rulers, particularly when they embody total power or aspire to it, fear any kind of critical discussion. Xenophon (A) had already drawn attention to the fear which grips tyrants: “kings find it always necessary to march as through an enemy’s country”, because they “never really are at peace with those whom they hold in subjection; nor dares a tyrant rely upon the faith of any treaty which he makes with the rest of mankind” (op. cit., cap. 7, pp. 325–6). 221  Nietzsche (1986), p. 40. 222  It is worthwhile recalling that Orwell (1949) aptly referred to “reality control”, “double think” and “newspeak”. On the issue, see also Klemperer (2006).

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power for power’s sake and the most extreme form of Machiavellianism. The action of ruling is entirely performed independently from the ruled.223 And, when the deception of the promise of the “counter-existential dream” is not enough, violence intervenes. The two are permanently mingled. 2. The Forces of Evil  No one can reshape the human condition or, more simply, ensure the success of his own actions. This is not possible even for rulers who have the most all-pervading powers. The “counter-existential dream” is consequently destined to break against reality. And yet it has its defences. Failure to achieve “redemption” and any negative events cannot of course be attributed to the incapacity of the forces of Good, because this would lead to their delegitimation. If things do not go as prefigured, it becomes necessary to find a “scapegoat”. This is the reason why the forces of Evil are called onto the stage. And any failure in the design is charged to their account. In other words, all forms of gnoseological absolutism and, to an even greater extent, all promises of “redemption” cannot cope without resorting to the “conspiracy theory of society”224; they live in a symbiotic relationship with it, because they need to permanently protect their counterfeiting of reality. Accordingly, whenever a promise fails to be accomplished, the blame is always laid upon the actions of men who have been rendered perverse by their own blind interests and who operate wickedly against the “truth”. Their “perversion” is such that their minds resist true knowledge: “if the manifest truth does not prevail, it has been maliciously suppressed”.225 It is clear: we are not claiming here that conspiracies never take place. But the point is that “conspirators rarely consummate their conspiracy”.226 The complexities of social situations leave very little room for the action of projective logic. Intentions are not enough to achieve the re-shaping of man and the world. And if this were, in some mysterious way, to be possible, intentions would not be enough to prevent it. One can therefore say that “the only explanation” which the representatives of totalitarian  Cf. Arendt (1961, pp. 136–41), Belohradsky (1979, pp. 22–25).  Popper (1966), vol. 2, p.  94. Hayek (1972, p.  139) himself wrote: “The enemy, whether be internal, like the Jew or the kulak, or external, seems to be an indispensable requisite in the armoury of a totalitarian leader”. 225  Popper (1991), p. 8. In this way, “manifest truth” is the “privilege” of the pure. It is therefore a “privileged point of view on the world”. 226  Popper (1966), vol. 2, p. 95. 223 224

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utopias offer for the “failure to produce their heaven is the evil intention of the Devil, who has a vested interest in hell”.227 But here animism wins out over any flicker of critical reason. In order to defend itself, that is, the utopian-totalitarian state needs to uproot any possible reasonableness. It needs to have a systematic and frenzied fear of it.228 It converts and dictates what the ruled should believe and what they should think.229 It keeps them locked in its embrace through ongoing mobilisation and by institutionalising the hatred of any form of diversity.230 And, never being capable of definitively entering into the mind of each man, it builds up its “defences” by resorting to every possible form of external control, giving credence to any suspicion and every informer’s report, demanding self-­ criticism, extorting confessions for crimes never committed and carrying out all manner of foul deeds. Writing before Orwell, Guglielmo Ferrero stated that a totalitarian government “would like to be a giant ear listening to what is said in shacks and mansions”.231 And he added: “it would like to read all the letters, know the thoughts in every head, seize every secret – those of the confessional as well as those of the bedroom. It multiplies its spies, its censorship, its surveillance: it establishes a large-scale police to supervise everyone, the ignorant and the learned, the rich and the poor, the humble and the great,  Ibid.  Ferrero (1981, p. 41) significantly wrote “Power is afraid of men who can rebel”. And in the case of totalitarian power, fear takes on an obsessive character. As we know, Hobbes (1651, p. 106) observed that public power has the strength to form “by terror” the wills of all. But it is also true, taking Ferrero’s position on board, that rulers are “afraid” of the ruled, because the latter can at any time withdraw the consent on which public power is based. 229  See Mises (1969b), p. 17. 230  Spencer (1881, p. 46) rightly wrote that in communism “the army is simply the mobilized society and the society is the quiescent army”. This is applicable to every totalitarian regime. It should not be forgotten, furthermore, that the political leader, who is the bearer of the salvific message, is also the military leader. Permanent mobilization “alters” the individual, keeping him constantly outside himself, so that he cannot think critically, keep a distance from the existent and commit what Orwell (1949) called “thoughtcrimes”. And the hatred of those who are different is a precise consequence of having the conceit of owning the “formula” with which to regenerate the human condition, which has “lapsed” because of the intervention of the forces of Evil. Weber (1946, p. 125) aptly wrote that anyone who “wants to establish absolute justice on earth by force” must hold out “the satisfying of hatred and the craving of revenge; above all, resentment and the need for a pseudo-ethical selfrighteousness: the opponents must be slandered and accused of heresy”. 231  Ferrero (1981), p. 219. 227 228

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it creates a superpolice to supervise the police: it trusts nothing and no one. Censorship […] extends to cover all activities of the mind. Allusions can lurk anywhere; in literature, in art, in philosophy, in mathematics, in schools, in universities, in churches, in shops, in farmhouses and in workshops. And to defend itself it sees only one way to safety: that of increasing its powers, increasing them more and increasing them always”, using violence to rid itself of every possible opposition.232 It is a total and permanent war against everything which is not a ratification of its counterfeit reality. 3. The Apparatus and Recruitment  If the forces of Evil constitute the means through which failures can be masked and delegitimation can be defended against, the apparatus is the instrument for intervention. It is superlatively extensive. We already know that the elimination of voluntary cooperation necessarily leads to the coercive solution. And this is achieved first and foremost through militarisation. This means that with the “cover” of the dogma of salvific truth, systematic recourse is made to threat and the use of force. And it is in this militarised context that society is subjected to a capillary process of bureaucratisation. Engels thought of socialism as a system where every social function would be carried out by “salaried employees” of the State.233 And Lenin believed that it was necessary to undertake “the conversion of all citizens into workers and other employees of one huge syndicate  – the whole State”.234 It is something which was carried out by different methods on the part of the Nazi regime too. Caging up private initiative behind a complex interventionist web, Nazism aimed at the de-individualisation of life, i.e. at its complete bureaucratisation.235 The consequence is that social order becomes a product of the prescriptions of public power. It is a planned and intentional order.236 And, if the 232  Ibid. In analysing Leninism, Selznick (1952, p. 6) stated that its “over-all aim” was a “total transformation of society”, investing “every institution with political meaning”. In the light of what has been said in the text, this is equivalent to stating that public power should englobe every moment of social life, in order to prevent even the slightest form of dissent. 233  Engels (1939), p. 315. 234  Lenin (1974), p. 475. 235  See Mises (1969a, 1977). 236  Comte (1974, p. 145) went as far as to state that in the “re-organised society” there will be no more room for chance. For Hegel, on the other hand, the problem was already settled.

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first necessity of rulers is always to confirm their power, intentional order is the situation in which they feel this need the most: because they embody total power; and it is inadmissible for their decisions to be questioned.237 Therefore, they use the exclusive criterion of conformity to select their “staff”, to whom they extend the “office charisma”, the “sacredness”, that is, of the condition of depositaries of the salvific truth. Those who find themselves in a position of command transmit the “gift” of privileged knowledge to the apparatus, making it a fully-fledged “charismatic bureaucracy”.238 In exchange, the person selected must offer his ability to adapt to the counterfeit social reality and display personal loyalty to those who are affirming that reality at the time. Consequently, access to the governing class is only possible by co-optation and is paved with insincerity and a servile disposition. The problem is twofold. Those who aspire to superordinated positions must first of all be capable of finding their way among the rival factions and their intrigues, in the attempt to end up on He (1955, vol. 1, p. 29) wrote: “We must take into history the belief and the thought that the world of the will has not put itself into the hands of chance. That in what happens to peoples the dominating element should be an ultimate end, that in universal History there should be a reason – and not the reason of a particular person, but divine absolute reason – is a truth that we assume; its proof is the very way History is treated: it is the symbol and act of reason”. As Ortega (1960, p. 391) stressed, “historians are horrified by chance. It irritates and offends them because, in their opinion – the childish opinion historians are accustomed to express – chance is a negation of historical science, in that it is the power which is the enemy of “reason”. Since, furthermore, between the lines of their writing chance roams constantly like an enfant terrible, mocking them and their “reason”, they see it not only as the enemy of the possibility of history, but as the great insolent knave who, always hanging around putting on cynical displays, threatens the decency of science. It is however clear that the historian of the future will, at last!, be a historian who, by placing chance in reality, as one of its ingredients, will not hesitate to give it his attention, emphasising its appearance and influence, in exactly the same way he does with other historical forces”. The opposite of intentional order is what occurs when individuals, in the attempt to pursue their own ends, cooperate voluntarily. Here the mutual co-adaptation of actions gives rise to an unintended order, which does not derive from the plans of a single mind or the prescriptions of a restricted group of rulers. See, extensively, Infantino (1998). 237  It is worth recalling what Ferrero (1981, p.  222) wrote regarding the Napoleonic administrative apparatus: “Napoleon was the first to transform the Administration into a machine to produce enthusiasm: speeches, demonstrations, processions, triumphal arches, agendas, booklets, pamphlets, illustrated apologetical leaflets, presentations of keys at the gates of cities, showers of flowers, popular receptions. Napoleon is the first to organize the enthusiasms of the people, subtracting them from political parties, into a kind of State monopoly”. 238  The expression “charismatic bureaucracy” is from Belohradsky (1979, pp. 54–57).

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the side of the winning group.239 And, inside the victorious faction, he has to measure himself against those who are always ready to display greater conformist zeal and greater personal malleability. Accordingly, nothing is certain, apart from the obvious interest of those who hold top positions to prefer individuals with obsequious personalities, who are anxiously willing to “extol” the omniscience and the greatness of those who let them share in even the smallest fragment of public power. It also happens that even the most docile “yes-men” privately assess the benefits they have received, comparing them with their ambitions to or the mere hope of occupying better or higher positions.240 Which means that apparatchiks are submissive (and practise the “cult” of the leader), only because this conduct produces political advancement. And, as soon as they attain a higher position, they are ready to ask for themselves the same 239  As far as factional battles are concerned, it is enough to think of the Stalinist “purges” under communism and the “night of the long knives” under Nazism. Obviously, the exponents of the victorious group proclaim themselves to be genuine defenders of “public safety”; they thus present their crimes as an act of “truth” and “self-defence” on the part of the State or, that is, of the order they have imposed and from which they benefit. As we know, Fromm (1973) dwelt at length on the personalities of Stalin and of Hitler. He identified the former as a clinical case of “nonsexual sadism”, or in other terms “mental sadism”, characterized by the fact that Stalin enjoyed “to assure people that they were safe, only to arrest them a day or two later […]. Stalin could enjoy the sadistic pleasure of knowing the man’s real fate at the same time that he was assuring him of his favour” (op. cit., p. 285). As far as Hitler is concerned, a few days before he betrayed him and had him killed, he had an amiable conversation with Ernst Röhm. And yet, even without going to the extent of analysing the personalities of certain political criminals, one can understand, using what has been said in the text, that it is the utopian-totalitarian design which fuels simulation and betrayal. Fromm also emphasized Hitler’s “necrophilia”, marked by the “disproportionality between the destruction he ordered and the realistic reasons for it” (op. cit., p. 401). But here too one can say that the utopian-totalitarian programme, having the reshaping of man and the world as its goal, expresses an extremely powerful destructive charge against existing reality. It is therefore necessary to repeat that investigating the personalities of certain political criminals can be important. But one should not forget that, in the absence of that given habitat, their “perversions” would not have been able to materialize. These men were responsible for the crimes they committed. And yet the context made it possible for them to be selected as leaders and allowed their crimes to be committed. It is significant that, in analyzing the politicosocial conditions created by the French Revolution, Burke (1951, p.  216) had already foreseen that a military leader would have been selected who would become the “master” of France. See also Chap. 4, note 127, with the text it refers to. 240  Cf. the comments made on the subject in Chap. 1, Sect. 1.3. As Simmel (1908, p. 38) stressed, in intersubjective relations there is always a “negative reserve” in one part of our personality, which does not enter into the relationship or which we simply do not display.

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as they have provided or are providing to their superordinates. This is why Weber wrote that faith “is in a very great number of cases really no more than an ethical ‘legitimation’ of cravings for revenge, power, booty and spoil”.241 And he added that “emotional revolutionism is followed by the traditional routine of everyday life; the crusading leader and the faith itself fade away, or, what is even more effective, that faith becomes part of the conventional phraseology of political Philistines and banausic technicians”.242 The “deluded person becomes the classic victim of hypocrites”.243 No “redemption from conflict” ever occurs. Even in a situation of planetary totalitarianism, there would still be clashes in society. In fact, there would, at least in latent form, be a “permanent civil war”244: because the hierarchisation which totalitarian power imposes is nothing less than a systematic “repression” of ruled and dissidents. And there is more to it. Since the “privileged point of view on the world”, the elimination or the marginalisation of private property and the market, cause that strife to take place in complete autonomy from the ruled, the clash for the acquisition of superordinated positions turns into a pure battle for power, where the declared stake (“salvation”) justifies resort to any means. Anything is admissible: “not just killing and beating to death but also lying, slandering and deceiving”.245 Just as Weber stressed, the salvific message then becomes the exclusive “cover” for factions which battle to maintain or conquer public power and obtain the use of the extensive bureaucratic apparatus.246 And the only “check” on the “legitimacy” of the rulers comes from the “victories” achieved in the halls of government, on the streets and on the battle

 Weber (1946), p. 125.  Ibid. 243  Topitsch (1973), p. 212. 244  Mises (1978), p. 153. 245  Ibid. 246  The “emotional revolutionism” is a part of the phase of mobilisation which Weber (1978, vol. 2, p. 1231) himself called statu nacendi. The transition to “everyday life”, the institutionalization of the “message”, that is, is “justified” by the salvific promise which becomes the “conventional phraseology” of any hierarchical positioning. Since it presents itself as the realization of the Good, the new hierarchy avoids being supervised in any way and fuels a bloody, relentless and base battle to secure power. This bears out Hannah Arendt (1963): in the actions of apparatchiks there is nothing heroic; hence the “banality of evil” which they carry out. 241 242

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fields.247 Which is equivalent to saying that “salvific power” goes to the final victor, who is the one who has made the best use of violence and/or deception. In a context of permanent and total counterfeiting of social reality (and connected self-referentiality), no other outcome is available. On each occasion, the losing factions in the battle for the conquest of power accuse the winners of having “betrayed” the original message. And yet, if one considers the matter properly, there is no betrayal. They use the same means and have the same goals as the victors. The only thing which distinguishes them is defeat.248

Appendix: The “prophet of doom” The monopolistic paradigm, on which every kind of closed society has based itself, prevents the control of the rulers by the ruled. The rulers live in a condition of permanent self-referentiality. Any change or turnover of people is an extraordinary event. They are not the consequence of an institutionalised mechanism for the scrutiny of the government activity and they “are not based upon a rational attempt to improve social conditions”.249 In reference to ancient Judaism, Weber pointed out the following: “Elijah received his commands from Yahwe in solitude and announced them personally as the emissary of his God […]. His incomparable prestige rested on this and upon his hitherto unheard of lack of discretion in standing up to the political power holders. Historically he is important as the first fairly ascertainable prophet of doom. In this is the forerunner of a series of grand figures which for our present day literary sources begin with Amos and end with Ezekiel”.250 As Weber also observed, “the sociological reason for the prophets’ solitude was, in first place, the fact that the prophecy of doom could not be taught professionally like that of good fortune. Further, it could not be exploited for profit”251; and this is easily understandable: first of all, because “no one would buy an evil omen”252;  Mises (1978), p. 153.  In this connection, a perfect example is the case of Trotskij (1972), who invoked the “betrayal” of the revolution only because he was the loser in his struggle with Stalin. See Mises (1981, pp. 513–8) and the classic criticism, from a socialist position, delivered by Rizzi (1977). Cf. also Mises (1978), p. 217. 249  Popper (1966), vol. 1, p. 172. 250  Weber (1952), pp. 108–9. 251  Op. cit., p. 109. 252  Ibid. 247 248

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and also for the reason that the “the question of Temple construction, succession to the throne, the private sins of the monarchs, worship, and the most varied political and personal decisions became topics of their [of the prophets of doom] oracles and their mostly undesired and extremely sharp criticism”253; and spoke out against the “social injustice of the king” and the “whole bureaucratic apparatus”, seen as an “Egyptian abomination”.254 Ortega aptly pointed out that God forced Amos to prophesy against his people, that is, against the course into which public life had been channelled.255 Consequently, one can say that the “prophet of doom” stood up against the phenomena which we can concisely encapsulate in the term of “Machiavellianism”. It follows that prophetism was to some extent the instrument through which the decisions of rulers were subjected to scrutiny. In other words, an attempt was made to prevent the actions of public power from being carried out in total self-referentiality. The prophet was “the herald, the speaker of Yahweh. […. In] that society established on a theocratic foundation, all of a sudden a special envoy of Yahweh appeared; all therefore felt, or at least should have felt, reverence towards him […]. The prophet, in the performance of his mission, came before the king and before the priests: he shouted out a rebuke in a sanctuary or in the Temple in Jerusalem, and then moved on to enunciate a threat on the threshold of the royal palace; he railed against political alliances, and turning elsewhere, he uttered his disapproval of syncretistic cults; he made public the scandals  Op. cit., pp. 110–1.  Op. cit., p. 111. 255  Ortega (1960, p.  423). Ricciotti (1955, vol. 1, pp.  386–387) presented the dispute between Amasia, priest of Bethel, and Amos, as hinging on economic reasons. And yet, if one has a clear understanding of the task of the “prophet of doom”, it is difficult to accept such an interpretation. The prime concern of Amasia is to denounce the preaching of the prophet before King Jeroboam: “Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words” (Amos, 7,10). And the fact that this is the problem is borne out by the order: “but prophesy not again any more at Beth-el: for it is the kin’s chapel, and it is the king’s court” (Amos, 7, 13). In other words, Amasia is afraid that Amos’s preaching may delegitimise established power. And he commands Amos: “O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophecy there” (Amos, 7, 12). But the urgency of Amos is not represented by “bread”, so much so that he answers: “I was not prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit; and the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophecy unto my people Israel” (7, 14–15). 253 254

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of the court and he cursed entire dynasties, as he exposed to the people’s contempt the greedy ministers of the sanctuary and he scolded the astonished crowd who listened to him for the corruption of their ways. And all recognised him this right, since he came from Yahweh”.256 The threats the prophet uttered on behalf of God were terrifying. Through Amos, Yahweh says: “it shall come to pass that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day: and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day”.257 It is no surprise therefore that the “prophet of doom”, despite being recognised as the envoy of God, could be unwelcome to rulers: he challenged them and obviously had to be ready to suffer the consequences of his preaching. This is why “being killed was the normal and ordinary prospect for a prophet”: if this did not happen it was “an exception”.258 For the purposes considered here, the most relevant point is in any case another one. It refers to the identification of the conditions which made the “prophet of doom” possible. As Weber pointed out, Yahwe was, “since Moses, […] the god of the covenant of the Israelite confederacy, and, corresponding to the purpose of the confederacy, he was primarily its war god. He played this role in a very special manner. He became war god by virtue of a treaty of confederation. This contract had to be concluded, not only among confederates, but also with him, for he was no god residing in the midst of the people, a familiar god, but rather a god hitherto strange. He continued to be a god from afar. This was the decisive element in the relationship”.259 In other words: “Yahwe was an elective god. The confederate people had chosen him through berith with him, just as, later, it

 Ricciotti (1955), vol. 1, p. 389, italics added.  Amos (8, 9–10). 258  Ricciotti (1955), vol. 1, p. 393. And yet the killing of the prophet did not prevent honours being paid to him posthumously; see Matthew (23, 29), Acts of the apostles (7, 52). Ricciotti (op. cit., p. 395) also wrote: “The attitude of the masses towards prophets was the ordinary attitude of moral pigmies confronted by giants who had appeared in their midst: an illogical, changeable attitude which fluctuated between veneration and repulsion, trust and incomprehension, which in a moment of feral exasperation stoned the giant but immediately afterwards, with those same stones soaked with his blood, erected a monument to him”. 259  Weber (1952), p. 130. 256 257

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established its king by berith. Yahwe, in turn, had chosen this people before all others by free resolve”.260 Weber further specified: “In this manner Yahwe became not only the war god of the confederacy but also the contractual partner of its law established by berith above all of the socio-legal orders. Since the confederacy was at first a stateless association of tribes, new statutes, whether cultic or legal in nature, could in principle originate only by way of agreement (berith) based on oracle like the original covenant”.261 And, “as guardian of confederate orders, Yahwe protects the customs and mores. That which is ‘unheard of’ in Israel is an abomination to him. In agreement with his original nature, however, and unlike Varuna and similar deities, he was not the guardian of the confederate law and mores in the sense of sanctifying an already existing immutable order of law or a ‘righteousness’ measurable in terms of fixed norms. On the contrary, this positive law for Israel was created through berith with him. It had not always been in existence and it was possible that by new revelation and a new berith with god it could be changed again”.262 There was therefore no one single “revelation” of the will of Yahweh. And there was no definitive monopoly over it. Public power and “charismatic bureaucracy” could at any time undergo “disintermediation” through the action of another envoy of God. The work of delegitimation performed by the “prophet of doom” is precisely an action of “disintermediation” made possible by the fact that Yahweh sent continual “messages” and kept them outside the monopoly of those who held public power. And this, even inside a theocracy, allowed an irregular and uncertain scrutiny over government activity. As if to say that possible control is only performed through the delegitimation of rulers. Accordingly, it was an extraordinary occurrence, which materialised through the initiative of men who in turn were devoid of any certain legitimation and who, for this reason, were often destined to fail. A genuine action of scrutiny requires a context where the formula of authority moves in an upward direction, hinging on the consent of the ruled and is not a “gift” from the divinity; and where the limitation of power is institutionalised.263  Ibid.  Op. cit., p. 131. 262  Op. cit., pp. 131–2. 263  Popper (1966, vol. 1, p. 172) quite rightly wrote: “When I speak of the rigidity of tribalism I do not mean that no changes can occur in the tribal ways of life. I mean rather that the comparatively infrequent changes have the character of religious conversions or revulsions”. 260 261

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CHAPTER 3

The Conditions Enabling Individual Choice and the Limitation of Power

3.1   Limiting Social Power and Limiting Public Power In Chap. 1, we have started by considering the sociological theory of Georg Simmel, where the intersubjective relationship is a “socially regulated” exchange. We have then “absorbed” Simmel’s approach inside the “conflict regulation” model proposed by Dolf Sternberger. In doing that, we have equated the situation described by Sternberger with the one generated by the “rule of law”, without however bringing to light the conditions which make it possible. It is now time to undertake that task. “Conflict regulation” is the product of a habitat in which individual choice and the correlative voluntary cooperation are institutionalised.1 It is a context within which we can freely decide what to do for others and what to ask others to do for us. There is competition on the demand side and the supply side. At the intersubjective level, each individual obviously enjoys different degrees of freedom. But multiple solutions are available because competition does not allow anyone to take on the position of exclusive offerer or exclusive asker. This does not occur only in the territory of interindividual relations. It also occurs within the relationship between rulers and ruled, for the reason that public power is acquired  On elective and prescriptive action, see Germani (1975), pp.  25–32. Cf. also Becker (1950), pp. 78–88. 1

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through a competition between individuals or groups of individuals, who contend with each other for the revocable support of the ruled; and this takes place within a situation where the response to the economic problem is entrusted to voluntary cooperation, which in itself severely restricts the sphere of intervention of public authority. Therefore, it can be said that freedom of choice limits social power, that is the power which is found inside intersubjective relations, and also limits public power. This is why, already in Chap. 1, we have argued, in line with Hayek, that competition is the “only system designed to minimize” the “power exercised by man over man”.2 And yet competition requires two indispensable conditions. It is necessary (a) for the action of individuals not to be subordinate to any privileged source of knowledge and (b) for each actor to avail themselves of their own material resources and thus to be able to rely on the guarantees afforded by the institutionalisation of private property (for the accomplishment of their individual projects). Both conditions must co-exist. This is why they are mutually supportive. A public power which is not legitimated by a “privileged point of view on the world” cannot threaten individual choice. And what private property does is to provide the resources which make competition possible and prevent public power from being the sole holder of material resources. This is all equivalent to placing all actors on the same formally legal footing. It is the affirmation of the “rule of law”, which is the normative habitat of competition. As we have already seen, Sternberger linked the model of “conflict regulation” mainly to Aristotle. But the fact is that, starting in Ionia, a bitter “struggle for law” to affirm isonomy had already taken place.3 That “struggle” occurred in conjunction with the birth of philosophy. And this is not a mere coincidence. The roots of critical discussion and law are Ionian because it was in those colonies that one found men with a variety of cultural worldviews. The need to live together, and to be able to have free “commerce” with each other, demanded that any “privileged point of view on the world” was dispelled.4 Hence critical ­ discussion. Hence law, which replaces  See Chap. 1, note 104.  “Struggle for law” is an expression coined by Jhering (1913). 4  On the origins of philosophy, see Ortega y Gasset (1960b, pp. 413–434), Popper (1966, vol. 1, p. 176; 1991, pp. 136–65). Russell (1947, p. 20) stated: “What may be called in a 2 3

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prescription and makes possible the co-adaptation of actions undertaken on the basis of individual choices. Solon (as he himself pointed out) wrote “laws for the lower and upper classes alike”5: the “certainty of being governed legally in accordance with known rules”.6 And yet, without the previous developments in Ionia, this would not have been possible. Werner Jaeger rightly stated: “Throughout Solon’s life and work it is clear that he was deeply influenced by Ionian civilization. Accordingly, we cannot doubt that these new political ideals also originated in Ionia, the intellectual and critical centre of Greece […]. Solon’s thought is clearly inspired by Ionia”.7 Athens not only imported philosophy but also law. And the Athenians were “proud of being equal citizens. Equality was for them the condition of liberty […]. The only words which serve in their language to distinguish the republican regime from all others were isonomia, equality before the law”, which also coincided with isegoria, understood as equal right of speech.8 In this way, “Attica became the classic home of liberty”.9 As a result, Aristotle did not open a new path. But he did have the merit of emphasising the importance of the “rule of law”. He wrote: “in the states under democratic government guided by law a demagogue does not rise, but the best classes of citizens are in the most prominent position; but where the laws are not sovereign, then demagogues arise; for the common people become a single composite monarch, since the many are sovereign not as individuals but collectively [… and], as being monarch, seeks to

broad sense the Liberal theory of Politics is a recurrent product of commerce. The first known example of this was in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, which lived by trading with Egypt and Lydia. When Athens […] became commercial, the Athenians became Liberal […]. The reasons for the connection of commerce with Liberalism are obvious. Trade brings men into contact […], and in so doing destroys the dogmatism of the untravelled”. It is significant that Aristotle (A, 1303b) also remarked that in Athens the inhabitants of Piraeus were “more” democratic than “those of the city”. 5  Solon (A), 24. 6  6. Barker (1947), p. 44; cf. also Ehrenberg (1969), pp. 244–5. For an extensive bibliography on the subject, the reader is referred to Infantino (2003a), pp. 1–98. 7  Jaeger (1986), vol. 1, p. 99 and 442, note 20. 8  Glotz (1929), p. 129. Jaeger (1947, p. 355) wrote: “the social revolution […] was carried out under the slogans diké and nomos or (to stress the equality of rights of the citizens) isonomia […], the old word which the Greeks used instead of the later demokratia”. 9  Glotz (1929), p. 128.

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exercise monarchic rule through not being ruled by the law, and becomes despotic, so that flatterers are held in honour. And a democracy of this nature is comparable to the tyrannical form of monarchy, because their spirit is the same”.10 Both “exercise despotic control over the better classes, and the decrees voted by the assembly are like the commands issued in a tyranny, and the demagogues and the flatterers are the same people or a corresponding class, and either set has the very strongest influence with the respective ruling power, the flatterers with the tyrants and the demagogues with democracy of this kind”.11 Demagogues “owe their rise to greatness to the fact that the people is sovereign over all things, while they are sovereign over the opinion of the people”.12 “And it would seem to be a reasonable criticism to say that such a democracy is not a constitution at all; for where the laws do not govern there is no constitution”.13 Hence the conclusion that “if then democracy really is one of the forms of constitution, it is manifest that an organization of this kind, in which all things are administered by resolutions of the assembly, it is not even a democracy in the proper sense, for it is impossible for a voted resolution to be a universal rule”.14 Governing by decrees is equivalent to establishing a systematic mechanism to grant favours and to taint the relationship between rulers and ruled. It marks the success of arbitrary power, which makes use of legality solely to disguise its interests, which are different from those which would be affirmed if democracy were to be respected “in the proper sense”, meaning isonomy. As Aristotle further clarified, “a fundamental principle of the democratic form of constitution is liberty – that is what usually asserted, implying that only under this constitution do men participate in liberty, for they assert this as the aim of every democracy”.15 And freedom is made possible precisely by equality before the law, which stands as a limit to both public power and

10   Aristotle (A), 1292a. In Aristotle’s text, there is obviously a foreshadowing of Tocqueville’s “tyranny of the majority”. See also Aristotle (A, 1312b) and Tocqueville (1994), pp. 258–62. 11  Aristotle (A), 1292a. 12  Ibid. 13  Ibid. 14  Ibid. 15  Op. cit., 1317b.

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individual power. It is significant that Aristotle also argued: “it is expedient to be in a state of suspense and not to be able to do everything exactly as seems good to one, for liberty to do whatever one likes cannot guard against the evil that is in every man’s character”.16 And “the evil that is in every man’s character” means the pursuit of power for power’s sake, which leads to a situation where what rulers actually do has no connection with what they claim to be doing because their goal is to maintain or increase their own power and the power of their apparatus and the groups closest to them. Consequently, Aristotle worried about the possible use of public power as a patronage-based means of allocating economic resources. He wrote: “men must not to do what popular leaders do now”.17 And he also considered it was to avoid the distribution of “the surplus for doles”: because “this way of helping the poor is the legendary jar with a hole in it”.18 Aristotle was aware that, once this kind of intervention was adopted, the category of the “new poor” would become a terrain in which “demagogues” would carry out constant forays. There is a possible solution in order to avoid the developments which Aristotle pinpointed. Pericles had embraced “the humble institution of the market”.19 The reason for this was formulated by Karl Polanyi as follows: “democracy, in the Greek sense, required material safeguards to prevent the bribing of the public by the rich. As the only effective guarantee, the wealthy were to be prevented from feeding the politically active populace that was engaged in sitting on the jury, voting in the assembly, administering in the Prytany”.20 Putting this into more direct terms, it means that the problem is caused by the intermingling of public power and the economy. If the pólis takes on the task of allocating economic resources, “demagogues” and their “apparatuses” gain the upper hand. As Sternberger wrote, “economic politics kills off politics or, in other words, the civil community”.21 Isonomy and the “rule of law” cease to exist, and plurality and dialogue are distorted.22 And in the same way the economy is also

 Op. cit., 1319a.  Op. cit., 1320a. 18  Ibid. 19  Polanyi (1977), p. 165. 20  Op. cit., p. 172. 21  Sternberger (1978), vol. 1, p. 409. 22  Ibid., pp. 389–96. See also Arendt (1993). 16 17

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killed off, losing its autonomy: because interests prevail which escape from the checks and the selection of the “humble institution of the market”. Accordingly, one can understand the reasons why, in the “Aristotelian system, politics and economics are two necessarily distinct sciences” and “the figures of the politikós and the oikonomikós, the politician and the steward of the house, are equally necessarily distinct”.23 In other words, the State “was and defined itself ‘political’, also because it was not ‘economic’, it was by definition distinct from the ‘house’ and its ‘stewardship’, or from the economy as such”.24 And Aristotle did in fact state that those “who think that the natures of the statesman, the royal ruler, the head of an estate and the master of a family are the same, are mistaken; they imagine that the difference between these various forms of authority is on of greater or smaller number, not a difference in kind”.25 Sternberger rightly stressed that in the Aristotelian conception, “among the free citizens of the polis” there exists equality, whereas inside the oíkos there is a hierarchical relationship.26 And this is the source of greatest concern for Aristotle. He was afraid that eventually the pólis might turn into one single, great mechanism of authoritative allocation of resources. He believed that “a lesser degree of unity is more desirable than a greater”.27 “It is clear that, if the process of unification advances beyond a certain point, the city will not be a city at all; for a state essentially consists of a multitude of persons, and if its unification is carried beyond a certain point, city will be reduced to family and family to individual, for we should pronounce the family to be a more complete unity than the city, and the single person than the family; so that even if any lawgiver were able to unity the state, he must not do so, for he will destroy it in the process. And not only does a city consist of a multitude of human beings, it consists of human beings differing in kind. A collection of persons all alike does not constitute a state”.28

 Sternberger (1978), vol. 1, p. 409.  Ibid. 25  Aristotle (A), 1252a. 26  Sternberger (1978), vol. 1, pp. 92–3. In order to validate his thesis, Sternberger invoked a passage in which Aristotle (A, 1259b) emphasised these points. 27  Aristotle (A), 1261b. 28  Op. cit., 1261a. Which is tantamount to saying that the city is the product of social cooperation, entered into by actors performing different roles. 23 24

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It is therefore necessary to prevent the pólis from turning into oikía. This is exactly what occurs, in an extreme form, with the communism of goods. Which is like saying that one must take care not to attribute the cause of the “evils” in constitutions to the fact that property is not common. “The real cause of all these evils is not the absence of communism […], since we see far more quarrels occurring among those who own or use property in common than among those who have their estates separate; but we notice that those who quarrel as a result of their partnership are few when compared with the total number of private owners. And again it is just to state not only all the evils that men will lose by adopting communism, but also all the good things; and life in such circumstances is seen to be utterly impossible”.29 It is clear: it is not necessary to wait until the events of the twentieth century to see Aristotle’s concerns corroborated. It is enough to recall what Weber wrote about “patrimonialism”. Egypt “appears as a single tremendous oíkos ruled patrimonially by the pharaoh. The Egyptian administration always retained characteristics of the oíkos economy, and the Romans treated the country essentially like a huge Imperial domain. The Inca state and in particular the Jesuit state in Paraguay were based on forced labor […]; the actual political power of the Oriental sultans, the medieval princes and the Far eastern rulers centered in these great patrimonial domains. In these latter cases the political realm as a whole is approximately identical with a huge princely manor”.30 And “we shall speak of a patrimonial state when the prince organizes his political power over extrapatrimonial areas and political subjects – which is discretionary and not enforced by physical coercion – just like the exercise of his particular power”.31

29  Op. cit., 1263b. The impossibility of structuring a complex society on communist bases was argued by Simmel (1908, p. 48) and is one of the points most forcefully advanced by Mises (1981a, pp. 103–5). For an extensive discussion of the subject, see Infantino (2003a, pp.  25–32). Continuing his opposition to a communist project, Aristotle (ibid.) further asserted: “For in one way the state as its unification proceeds will cease to be a state, and in another way, though it continues a state, yet by coming near to ceasing to be one it will be a worse state, just as if one turned a harmony into unison or a rhythm into a single foot”. 30  Weber (1978, vol. 2, p. 1013), who saw in China “the purest type of patrimonial bureaucracy that is unencumbered (as far as this is possible) by any counterweight” (op. cit., p. 1063). 31  Op. cit., p. 1013.

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“Patrimonial conditions have had an extraordinary impact as the basis of political structures”.32 The “majority of all great continental empires had a fairly strong patrimonial character until and even after the beginning of modern times”.33 Being based on prescription and the abolition of any possible individual choice, patrimonialism has nothing to do with the rule of law. There remains a question: is there a correct understanding of market phenomena in Aristotle? Karl Polanyi rightly wrote that “Aristotle discovers the economy”.34 And yet one cannot say that he achieved to clearly decipher economic phenomena. We have already indicated that his heritage is “varied”.35 Ortega y Gasset saw in Aristotle a “surprising mixture of modernity (= relative modernity) and primitivism”.36 One case in which this is displayed is in his attack on Solon, who had understood that there is no limit to the growth of wealth. But for Aristotle such growth is a product of “wealth-getting” (chrematistics), and it is not “natural”.37 To complete this discussion, it is worth recalling that the same “mixture” of positions is found in Cicero, who was a staunch supporter of the sovereignty of law. It was he who expressed the formula: “legum denique idcirco omnes servi sumus, ut liberi esse possumus”.38 And, furthermore, in De Republica, Cicero quoted Cato the Censor, who had asserted: “Our own commonwealth was based upon the genius, not of one man, but of many; it was founded not in one generation, but in a long period of several centuries and many ages of men […] there never has lived a man possessed of so great genius that nothing could escape him, nor could the combined powers of all men living at one time possibly make all the necessary provisions for the future without the aid of actual experience and the test of

 Ibid.  Ibid. 34  Polanyi (1971), pp. 64–94. 35  Cf. Chap. 1, Sect. 1.7. 36  Ortega y Gasset (1958), p. 239. See also Jaeger (1948), p. 262. 37  Cf. Aristotle (A, 1256b). On the limitations of Aristotle’s economic conceptions, see Schumpeter (1997, p. 60–5), Polanyi (1971, pp. 64–94), Rothbard (1996a, vol. 1, p. 14), Infantino (2003a, pp. 48–56). For a critique of his theory of knowledge, cf. Popper (1991, p. 151). 38  Cicero (C), 146. 32 33

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time”.39 Alongside this, though, one finds Cicero extolling Lycurgus and Romulus, praising the “wise man” and the “optimates” and expressing his contempt for economic activity.40

3.2   Formal Legal Equality and Secularisation As we have pointed out, when the pólis takes over the task of allocating economic resources, equality before the law is completely uprooted. Isonomy, the condition which prevents public power from “hierarchising” society on the basis of its own interests, and the interests of the groups supporting it, ceases to exist. The “rule of law” is replaced by the “rule of men”, and public authority takes on the status of an independent variable. At the same time, individual freedom of choice and voluntary cooperation are also disrupted. The extensive social process which freely mobilises the knowledge and resources of each is distorted and impaired. Individual plans lose their autonomy. And what is instead established is a social order which is intended to be the planned outcome of the activities of public power. As Hayek pointed out, the Greeks of the Classical period had “distinct single words for […] two kinds of order”: they used cosmos for unintended order and taxis for intentionally established order.41 The decrees of the public power aim at producing taxis. The “rule of law” produces cosmos. Werner Jaeger stated: “When we speak of democracy, we think in the first place of the liberties which it grant to its citizens. In the heroic age of the Athenian democracy […], isonomia [… was] the supreme ideal, a social order based on equality before the law. It was the pólis which represented this principle and protected the freedom of the individual against powerful pressure groups”.42 The basis for this was the law, “not a mere decree but the nomos”.43 And also “in the period of gradual dissolution of the old Greek faith in law”, the “strict relationship of the nomos to the nature of the cosmos was not universally questioned”.44 In the specific case

 Cicero (A), II, I.  For a comprehensive discussion of this point, cf. Infantino (2003a), pp. 56–61. 41  Hayek (1982), vol. 1, p. 37. On this subject, see also Leoni (1991). 42  Jaeger (1947), pp. 360–361. 43  Op. cit., p. 361. 44  Op. cit., p. 365. 39 40

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of Aristotle, one notices that he often used the expression taxis.45 And yet equality before the law inevitably gives rise to a cosmos.46 Consequently, unintended order is made possible by the nomos. Which amounts to saying that the Athenian pólis would not have been possible without the “rule of law”. Where individual freedom of choice reigns, the countless individual actions which occur require a process of voluntary and mutual “adjustment”: their compatibility cannot be “imposed”, nor can it be known beforehand. The isonomic condition ensures that individual plans will encounter co-adaptation. But it is not possible to know the exact configuration this co-adaptation will assume. There is an abstract order, as represented by the nomos, which prevents the infringement of other individuals’ sphere of autonomy; and this marks out the boundary between individual actions and allows for the voluntary “settlement” of plans. It is no accident that Friedrich von Savigny wrote: “that […] free individuals live together in […] mutual relationships helping each other, without being of mutual hindrance in their development, is possible only through the recognition of an invisible boundary line, within which the existence and activity of each can enjoy a free and safe space. The rule which lays down that boundary and determines that space is the law”.47 Therefore, the content of actions is decided individually and cannot be “prescribed” by anyone. In other words, each actor can freely mobilise their own knowledge and resources; and the law marks out the areas of autonomy and “regulates” possible conflict.

45  Hayek (1982, vol. 1, pp. 156–7, note 9) pinpointed two passages in the Politics, where Aristotle presents social order as taxis. A number of others could easily be flagged. There is however a “place” where Aristotle (A, 1252b) stated: the city “comes into existence for the sake of life, it exists for the good life. Hence every city […] exists by nature”. Probably with this passage in mind, Ortega y Gasset (1948, p. 13) wrote that “Aristotle, with his astonishing sensitivity towards facts, deftly perceives that State and society are not the same thing”. 46  If one places the rule of law as the basis of Aristotle’s political theory, one ends up, as Sternberger does, with the model of “conflict regulation”. The origin of that idea, however, precedes Aristotle. And as we have seen in the previous section, Aristotle’s heritage is “varied”. 47  Savigny (1840), vol. 1, pp. 331–2, italics added. Savigny (op. cit. p. 332) also stated: “every individual legal relationship appears to us as a relationship among a number of people, determinated by a legal rule [… and such] determination consists of the fact that to individual will is assigned a field in which it dominates independently of the will of others”.

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This means that the normative habitat is made up of general and abstract rules, which apply to all and make no difference between the personal identities and the purposes involved. Since they do not prescribe the content of action, but restrict themselves indicating what actors cannot do (i.e. damaging others), they allow each individual, as already indicated, to mobilise their own knowledge and material resources freely. If they were prescriptive rules, produced from a “privileged point of view on the world”, and accompanied by the absence of private property, individuals would not be able to express their freedom of choice; and we would not have the very extensive social process which is fuelled precisely by individual freedom. Thus, one can say that general and abstract rules are the consequent result of (a) the lack of any superior source of knowledge and (b) the institutionalisation of private property. They are like algebraic expressions which stand before us with their known values (what we cannot do, because it would damage others) and their unknown values (the personal “contents” from which actions variously arise, but which determine typical situations). This is why Max Weber stated that “every concrete legal decision” is the “application of an abstract legal proposition to a concrete fact situation”.48 Expressed in more direct terms, one could also say that every concrete decision is inserted inside an “abstract legal principle”.49 What therefore occurs is that, despite being produced by extremely disparate individual choices, intersubjective relations always take the shape of situations regulated by law.50 It follows that “freedom is not only an economic or a political concept, but also, and probably above all, a legal concept”.51 Without the  Weber (1978), vol. 2, p. 657.  See more extensively Infantino (2008), pp. 46–50. 50  This is why Weber (1978, vol. 2, p. 667) wrote: abstract rules “assert that a factual situation is to have certain legal consequences”. Hayek (1960, p.  208) himself stated: “The general, abstract rules […] are […] essentially long-term measures, referring to yet unknown cases and containing no reference to particular persons, places, or objects”. 51  Leoni (1991), p. 4. See also Pollock (1912), p. 124. It is significant that Simmel, as we have already seen (cf. the text at note 165 in Chap. 1), wrote that “exchange and regulated exchange” are the same thing. Böhm-Bawerk (1962, p.  160) in turn argued: “in every civilized community, there must always exist some social order which will apply when two members of that society get into contact with each other”. Consequently, there cannot be a market without law. And yet the notion put forth here does not overlap with the one elaborated by Ordoliberalism, where we find the legislator performing a role that 48 49

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isonomic condition, there cannot be freedom of choice and voluntary cooperation. That condition creates individual spheres of autonomy. In other words, the law creates the “private” sphere and protects it. This gives rise to what Popper termed the “abstract society”, where the “areas” of autonomy guaranteed by law make it possible to cooperate with unknown individuals52: because anyone (whether they be a Catholic, a Muslim, a Jew or an atheist; a farmer, an industrialist or a financier; a man of wealth or an indigent person etc.) acting in a given way produces effects which are protected by the law. Public power itself, whose area of competence is restricted in the same measure as voluntary cooperation expands, must comply with the law “in the same manner as any private person”.53 Nor is this the whole story. If the privileged source of knowledge ceases to exist, then there is no science of Good and Evil. Weber rightly wrote: “As Hellenic man at times sacrificed to Aphrodite and at other times to Apollo, and, above all, as everybody sacrificed to the gods of his city […]. Fate, and certainly not science, holds sway over those gods and their struggles”.54 Which is tantamount to saying that reason cannot found an ethical system. And no conception of the world, whether philosophical or religious, can be imposed in a compulsory manner. Public power and religion (and any historical finalism) must be separated. This does not imply the death of the sacred. But it is no longer an “imperative”. It is only “teleocracy” which dies.55 Anyone is free to attribute any meaning whatever to their own existence. Religious choice is allowed; it is part of the private sphere and it fuels the life of infrasocial religious groups which have no prescriptive power and must subject

the Austrian School representatives and their followers oppose. Cf. Mises 1978a, p. 16). For an extensive treatment of Ordoliberalism, see Böhmler (1998); for a succinct treatment, see Vatiero (2015, pp. 294–296). 52  On the concept of “abstract society”, see Popper (1966), vol. 1, pp. 174–5. 53  Hayek (1960), p. 210. 54  Weber (1946, p. 148), who also wrote: “The fate of an epoch which has eaten of the tree of knowledge is that it must know that we cannot learn the meaning of the world from the results of its analysis […]. It must recognize that general views of life and the universe can never be the product of increasing empirical knowledge” (Weber 1949, p. 52). 55  Oakeshott (1975) contrasted “nomocratic” and “teleocratic” order. See also Hayek (1982), vol. 2, p. 15.

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themselves to the rule of law.56 Those who hold roles of authority can no longer invoke any legitimation which is placed “beyond proof and refutation”. Thus, public power undergoes a thorough process of secularisation. The State must be secular and non-confessional. Every moment in life is freed from religious or even philosophical prescription and is structured through freedom of choice. All of this requires us to dwell on two important issues. A) The Concept of Justice  On several occasions we have argued that the purpose of law is to mark out boundaries between actions. And here one question must necessarily be addressed: if actors co-adapt their plans voluntarily, what need is there for law? The alternative is: “rule of law” or “rule of men”. If the prescriptive order ceases to exist, what allows the actions of individuals to be co-adapted is precisely the law. A legal condition is therefore indispensable. It acts in a way which is completely indirect: because it indicates to the parties involved what they may not do. And since actors are not allowed to resort to force or fraud, this translates into the protection of the sphere of individual autonomy. The demarcation of the boundaries between actions occurs in “negative” terms, through the identification of what the conduct parties are not allowed to undertake. Which is the same as saying that the fall of the “privileged point of view on the world” and the secularization which concomitantly occurs do not make it possible to identify what is “just” in positive terms. It is only possible to establish what is “unjust”.57 This is why public power, which already sees its area of intervention restricted by the fact that the economic problem is solved through free social cooperation, can only resort to coercion to sanction

56  We are therefore very distant from the “religious police” invoked by Plato. See note 59 in Chap. 2 and the corresponding text. 57  See Hayek (1982, vol. 2, pp.  38–42), who also specified: “It is significant that there exists a close parallel between this treatment of rules of justice as prohibitions and as subject to a negative test and the modern development in the philosophy of science, especially by Karl Popper, which treats the laws of nature as prohibitions and regards as their test the failure of persistent efforts of falsification, a test which, in the last resort, also proves to be a test of internal consistency of the whole system. The positions in the two fields are analogous also in that we can always only endeavour to approach truth, or justice, by persistently eliminating the false or unjust, but can never be sure that we have achieved final truth or justice” (ibid., p. 43).

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“unjust” actions, but not to impose any specific conduct as “just”. It is the affirmation of the principle of nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege. B) The Common Good  Equality before the law is a consequence of the falling away of the “privileged point of view on the world”. It is no longer a “prize” deriving from the benevolence of certain men towards others or brought about by mutual agreements between human beings. Solon was already aware of this58: it is a necessity which descends from the ignorance of which each person is bearer. In order to try to defend themselves from this condition, it is necessary for everyone to be able to mobilise their own personal and material resources; everyone should be in a position to contribute to the discovery of new solutions and the correction of errors. It follows that the common good cannot be a known goal to be pursued collectively. On the contrary, it consists of the set of conditions which allow each individual to exercise their freedom of choice and to fuel a process of an ateleological nature.59 And said conditions coincide with the institutionalization of equality before the law and of private property: because these precisely are the factors which leave the social process always open and make it an ongoing procedure of exploration of the unknown.60

3.3   The Restoration of the Isonomic Idea The isonomic condition is thus the first requirement for any non-­ prescriptive order. Johan Huizinga aptly pointed out: “we should regret the fact that the cultures which developed on the basis of Ancient Greece did not, instead of the term democracy, adopt the other term which in Athens […] aroused specific historical respect and which also expressed in a particularly pure manner the essential idea of a good form of government: the term ‘isonomy’, or equality before the law […]. Through this  See Solon (A), 16. Cf. also Plutarch (A), 2, 2e.  Hayek (1982), vol. 2, p. 114–5. See also Nozick (1974), p. 314. This does not rule out that the possibility of anyone “privately” seeing in every moment of social life the manifestation of some type of goal in gestation. But this belongs to the intangible sphere of individual choice, which in any case cannot be imposed on others. 60  Hayek (1978), pp. 179–90. 58 59

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word, the ideal of freedom speaks out much more crisply and immediately […], the basic principle of the rule of law is expressed concisely and clearly”.61 Therefore, we are indebted to classical antiquity for the ideal of the “rule of law”. Nevertheless, we know that Lord Acton saw in a passage by Thomas Aquinas the “earliest exposition of the Whig theory”.62 And there are many who emphasise this. But they neglect the fact that, on the same page, Acton speaks of Marsilius of Padua as “the ablest writer of the Ghibelline party” and then concludes that “one of them would have thought the other worthy of death”: because Aquinas would have made “the papacy control all Christian governments” and Marsilius would have had “the clergy submit to the law of the land; and would put them under restrictions both as to property and number”.63 More specifically, Aquinas did not hesitate to state that, under Christ’s Law, kings must be subject to priests.64 His continual criticism of tyranny is only the other side of his support for monarchy, legitimated by the endorsement of “the High Priest, the successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff [….] to whom all the kings in Christendom should be subject, as to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself”.65 This means, as we have also underscored in the previous chapter, that the political theory of Aquinas is indissolubly linked to the “privileged point of view on the world”, to the idea of order understood as taxis and of the “common good” as a goal.66 In the case of Marsilius, there is also an independent variable: “all parts are ordered by the ruler towards the ruler, who is the first of all the parts”.67 An intentional order is

 Huizinga (1945), p. 95.  Acton (1985), p. 34. 63  Op. cit., p. 35. 64  Aquinas (1978), p. 77. 65  Ibid. 66  To give just an example, one can quote the passage which opens On Princely Government: “Whenever a certain end has been decided upon, but the means for arriving thereat are still open to choice, some one must provide direction if that end is to be expeditiously attained. A ship, for instance, will sail first on one course and then on another, according to the winds it encounters, and it would never reach its destination but for the skill of the helmsman who steers it to port” (op. cit., p. 3). 67  Marsilius (1975), p. 207. 61 62

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established; power is unlimited.68 Consequently, Aquinas and Marsilius were very distant from the ideal of the “rule of law” and the later theoretical refinements formulated by the Whigs. The rule of law and the “privileged point of view on the world” are two opposite conceptions of economic, social and political life. One cannot proceed from the idea of a privileged source of knowledge to reach the “rule of law” and the limitation of public power. As a result, one can recognise the reasons why, after his moment of indulgence towards Thomas Aquinas, Acton went as far as to argue that, “from the death of St. Bernard until the appearance of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, there was hardly a writer who did not make his politics subservient to the interest of either Pope or King”.69 And Acton also added: “Bacon fixed his hope of all human progress on the strong hand of kings. Descartes advised them to crush all those who might be able to resist their power. Hobbes taught that authority is always in the right. Pascal considered it absurd to reform laws, or to set up an ideal justice against actual force. Even Spinoza, who was a Republican and a Jew, assigned to the State the absolute control of religion”.70 The fact is that the modern reformulation of limited government emerged from the conflicts which marked the history of England in the seventeenth century. And it did not originate as a “deliberate aim”. It was the product of a struggle in which different values and interests crossed in a way which eventually generated an order based on freedom of choice.71 It is also true that “the earlier English doctrine and the great medieval 68  It is no accident that Battaglia (1928, p. 58) and Passerin d’Entrèves (1940, p. 151) saw Marsilius as a precursor of Hobbes. 69  Acton (1985), p. 41. 70  Op. cit., p. 43. 71  Hayek (1960), p. 162. It may be useful here to read the following passage by Hume (1903, pp.  79–80): “We learn from English history that, during the civil wars, the Independents and Deists, though the most opposite in their religious principles, yet were united in their political ones, and were alike passionate for a commonwealth. And since the origin of Whig and Tory, the leaders of the Whigs have either been Deists or professed Latitudinaries in their principles; that is, friends to toleration, and indifferent to any particular sect of Christians: while the sectaries, who have all a strong tincture of enthusiasm, have always, without exception, concurred with that party in defence of civil liberty. The resemblance in their superstition long united the High-Church Tories and the Roman Catholics, in support of prerogative and kingly power; though experience of the tolerating spirit of the Whigs seems of late to have reconciled the Catholics to that party”.

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documents, from Magna Carta, the great constitutio libertatis, downward, are significant […], because they served as weapons in that struggle”.72 But their influence “is not quite what it is often thought to be”: “men of the Middle Ages knew many liberties in the sense of privileges granted to estates or persons”, they did not however “knew liberty as a general condition of the people”.73 The anti-absolutists were declaredly inspired by the Greek and Roman classical tradition.74 Significantly, on the opposite side, Thomas Hobbes argued that “as to rebellion in particular against monarchy, one of the most frequent causes of it is the reading of the books of policy and histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans”.75 Hobbes did not set out to attack the political literature of Greco-­ Roman antiquity in general. The target of his polemic was the “rule of law”. For this reason, he wrote: “another error of Aristotle’s politics, that in a well-ordered Commonwealth, not men should govern, but the laws”.76 Hobbes did not accept that law could consist of a limitation also imposed on public power. In his outlook, “the sovereign of a Commonwealth, be it an assembly or one man, is not subject to the civil laws. For having power to make and repeal laws, he may, when he pleaseth, free himself from that subjection by repealing those laws that trouble him, and making of new; and consequently he was free before. For he is free that can be free when he will: nor is it possible for any person to be bound to himself, because he that can bind can release; and therefore he that is bound to himself only is not bound”.77 Public power is accordingly not subjected to any limitations.78 And it also prescribes the content of individual action. “Civil law is to every  Hayek (1960), p. 163.  Op. cit., pp. 162–3. 74  As soon as one looks into the writing from that period, their Greco-Roman inspiration is glaringly clear. And not because of any desire to flaunt erudition. The ideal was provided by “mixed” or limited government, examples of which were sought in Classical Antiquity. See Fink’s (1962) wide-ranging discussion, which focuses in particular on Milton, Harrington and Sydney. In the Aeropagitica, one finds a fully-fledged exaltation of Greco-Roman culture. One must however point out that, in Milton, Renaissance and Reformation co-exist. 75  Hobbes (1651), p. 201. 76  Op. cit., p. 427. 77  Op. cit., p. 163. 78  It may be worthwhile at this point to quote a significant passage from Hobbes (op. cit., p. 200): “There is a […] doctrine, plainly and directly against the essence of a Commonwealth, 72 73

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subject those rules which the Commonwealth hath commanded him, by word, writing, or other sufficient sign of the will, to make use of, for the distinction of right and wrong; that is to say, of that is contrary and what is not contrary to the rule”.79 The force of customs too, the rules produced by social interaction, do not depend on mutual acceptance, but on the “will of the sovereign”.80 And, as far as religion was concerned, there was no doubt in Hobbes’s mind: “And because a Commonwealth hath no will, nor makes no laws but those that are made by the will of him or them that have the sovereign power, it followeth that those attributes which the sovereign ordaineth in the worship of God for signs of honour ought to be taken and used for such by private men in their public worship”.81 Hobbes’s outlook is based on an assumed state of nature and is then developed in a strenuously positivistic manner, placing itself in the service of a social order intentionally established by public power.82 It stands as diametrically opposite to the idea of the “rule of law”. And this is why the judgement expressed by Leo Strauss, according to which Hobbes was the “founder of liberalism”, is completely untenable.83 The fact is that the “rule of law” was channelled by the recovery of the isonomic principle. The term “isonomy” reached England from Italy towards the end of the sixteenth century.84 And it was used in the seventeenth century, before being gradually replaced by the expressions of “government of law” and “rule of law”. In the course of the troubled events of that period of English history, it happened that even those who were most attentive to the question did not have a full awareness of what was compatible with the “rule of law”. John

and it is this: that the sovereign power may be divided. For what is it to divide the power of a Commonwealth, but to dissolve it; for powers divided mutually destroy each other”. 79  Op. cit., p. 162. 80  Op. cit., p. 163. 81  Op. cit., p. 225. 82  Hobbes was one of the major exponents of what Hayek (1978) termed “constructivism”, the conception, that is, which assumes it can mould institutions according to its whim. Bayle (1697, vol. 1, p. 100) had remarked, in relation to Hobbes’s system, that even the ideas which have been thought through most carefully “run into a thousand snags”, when “we put them into contact with the tremendous chaos of passions which reigns among men”. 83  Strauss (1965), p. 182. Wolin (2006, p. 655, note 124) had no hesitation in stating that Strauss’s appraisal is a “distorted” interpretation of Hobbes’ thought. 84  Hayek (1960), pp. 164.

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Milton, James Harrington and Algernon Sydney supported that idea. Nonetheless, they also subscribed to the myth of “foundation” and the Great Legislator, taking Sparta as their model.85 In other words, they mingled “rule of law” and “rule of men”. In the case of Harrington, his endorsement of the Spartan model is also in sharp contradiction with the theorem he himself formulated in the opening pages of his greatest work, according to which there can be no political freedom without private property.86 85  For Milton, see Fink (1962), p. 107; for Harrington, cf. op. cit., pp. 83–84; for Sydney, see op. cit., p. 171. Harrington, in particular, followed Machiavelli (1883, pp. 42–5), who extolled Romulus and Lycurgus. Machiavelli had written: “we must take it as a rule to which there are very few or any exceptions, that no commonwealth or kingdom ever has salutary institutions […] in an entirely new mould, unless a single person. On the contrary, it must be from one man that it receive its institutions at first, and upon one man that all similar institutions must depend” (op. cit., p. 42). Harrington spent some time in Italy. He showed particular interest in the Venetian political system and got hold of Machiavelli’s works. On this, as well as Fink (1962), see also Schiavone (2004), p. XXI. As far as Sparta is concerned, it was necessary to wait for Constant’s speech on La liberté des anciens comparée à celle des modernes to find a clear condemnation of that city’s political system and history. Constant considered Athens to be, among “all the ancient states”, the one which “most resemble to modern states” (Constant, 1988b, p. 312). Yet it is paradoxical to see how misunderstood that “speech” was, often invoked to claim that the whole of Antiquity, including Athens, never knew individual liberty; on this issue, see Pellicani (2012, pp. 62–63). This misappreciation also applies to the work of Fustel de Coulange (1877, p. 352–3). But authors like Glotz, Jaeger, Pohlenz and Ehrenberg, to quote only a few, saw in Athens the place where individual freedom of choice made its first appearance. For more extensive references, see Infantino (2004). 86  Harrington (1924, p. 15) wrote: “If one man be sole Lanlord of a Territory, or overballance the people, for example, three parts in four he is Grand Seignor: for so the Turk is called from his Property; and his Empire is absolute Monarchy”. One cannot recognise the importance of private property and adopt Spartan collectivism as a model of reference. In slightly later period to Harrington’s, Bernier (1914, p. 242) wrote: “Those three countries, Turkey, Persia, and Hindoustan, have no idea of the principle of meum and tuum, relatively to land or other real possessions; and having lost that respect for the right of property, which is basis of all that is good and useful in the world, necessarily resemble each other in essential points: they fall into the same pernicious errors, and must, sooner or later, experience the natural consequences of those errors – tyranny, ruin and misery”. See also the comment in note 67 of the previous chapter. The clearest formulation of Harrington and Bernier’s theorem is found in Hayek (1972, p. 92): “Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served”. In other words, by marking out resources, private property marks out the spheres of autonomy of individual actors.

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It was the Glorious Revolution which made the “rule of law” its founding principle.87 And John Locke, who has the merit of having provided a “comprehensive philosophical justification” of that revolution,88 stated first of all that men are in society “for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property”.89 Locke further added: “whoever has the legislative or supreme power of a Commonwealth is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees; by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws”.90 This means that Locke, just like Hobbes, linked the birth of public power with the need to preserve life.91 And yet, unlike Hobbes, he chose the “rule of law”. Locke would have liked to be an explorer of the limits of knowledge, a “geographer of human reason”.92 This would have led him to give a clear 87  Hume (1983, vol. 5, pp. 329–330) wrote: “it has hitherto been found that, though some sensible inconveniences arise from the maxim of adhering strictly to law, yet the advantages overbalance them, and should render the English grateful to the memory of their ancestors, who, after repeated contests, at last established that noble […] principle”. Hume (op. cit., vol. 6, p. 531) added: “By deciding many important questions in favour of liberty, and still more, by that great precedent of depositing one king, and establishing a new family, it gave such an ascendant to popular principle, as has put the nature of the English constitution beyond all controversy. And it may justly be affirmed, without any danger of exaggeration, that we, in this Island, have ever since enjoyed, if not the best system of government, at least the most entire system of liberty, that ever was known amongst mankind”. Previously, Hume (1903, p.  252) had stated: “A Tory, therefore, since the [Glorious] Revolution, may be defined, in a few words, to be a lover of monarchy, though without abandoning liberty […]: as a Whig may be defined to be a lover of liberty, though without renouncing monarchy”. 88  Hayek (1960), p. 170. See also Pollock (1922), p. 98. 89  Locke (1821), p. 295. 90  Op. cit., p. 299. 91  Hobbes (1651, p. 79) wrote: “The passions that incline men to peace are: fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them”. 92  The term “geographer of human reason” was used by Kant (1922, p. 761) in reference to Hume. Locke (1825, p. 4) did in fact set out to map the outlines of the territory of knowledge: “Whereas, were the capacity of our understanding well considered, the extent of our knowledge once discovered, and the horizon found, which sets the bounds between the enlightened and dark part of things; between what is, and what is not, comprehensible by us; men would perhaps, with less scruple, acquiesce in the avowed ignorance of the one, and employ their thoughts and discourse, with more advantage and satisfaction of the other”.

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account of the gnoseological foundations of the “rule of law”. And yet he failed to accomplish the goal he had set himself in the field of the theory of knowledge because he was unable to detach himself from the doctrine of “manifest truth”. He believed that “as long as these two faculties serve one another, sensation furnishing reason with the ideas of particular sense-­ objects and supplying the subject-matter of discourse, reason on the other end guiding the faculty of sense, and arranging together the images of things derived from sense-perception, thence forming others and composing new ones, there is nothing so obscure, so concealed, so removed from any meaning that the mind, capable of everything, could not apprehend it by reflection and reasoning”.93 Now, even if we agree not to consider that what we call sensory “data” are simply “variables” which depend on our pre-sensory experience,94 there remains the fact that Locke established an authority which is not compatible with the fallibilism of the human condition. William W. Bartley III rightly wrote that the problem cannot be solved by replacing a rational authority considered unsatisfactory with a rational authority considered satisfactory.95 One gets nowhere by shifting from one foundation to another, from the primacy of intellectual intuition to that of sensory experience.96 As Popper wrote, even authors who have exhibited “individualistic tendencies” did “not dare to appeal to our critical judgment – to your judgment, or to mine; perhaps because they felt this might lead to subjectivism and to arbitrariness”.97 They did not realise that there is  Locke (2002), p. 147.  Hayek (1952, pp. 174–5). Hayek (op. cit., p. 166) specified: “Every sensation, even the ‘purest’, must […] be regarded as an interpretation of an event in the light of the past experience […]. The process of experience thus does not begin with sensations or perceptions, but necessarily precedes them: it operates on physiological events and arranges them into a structure or order which becomes the basis of their ‘mental’ significance; and the distinction between the sensory quality, in terms of which alone the conscious mind can learn about anything in the external world, is the result of such pre-sensory experience”. The consequence is that “John Locke’s famous fundamental maxim of empiricism that nihil est in intellectu quod non antea fuerit in sensu is […] not correct if meant to refer to conscious sense experience” (op. cit.. p. 177). 95  Bartley (1984), pp. 108–9. 96  Ibid. 97  This is what Popper (1991, p. 15) states in general with regard to those who, despite their intentions, failed to free themselves from the doctrine of “manifest truth”. And yet, taking as his reference certain passages from the Essay Concerning Human Understanding 93 94

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only one path which can be travelled. And this consists of a permanent attempt to identify our errors.98 Consequently, we need to reject the idea that there can be some individual who is a privileged holder of knowledge and we also need to relinquish the idea of a truth which is manifest to all. In other words, we need to rely on the most open competition possible, because only by comparing hypotheses and paradigms can we “hope to detect and eliminate error”.99 In the area of his theory of knowledge, Locke did not come to fallibilistic positions. But, what is more, the jusnaturalism he adopted further “weighed down” his position. The state of nature is a condition of “perfect freedom” and “equality, wherein all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal”.100 In fact, “reason teaches all mankind, who will but consult, that being all equal and independent no one ought to harm another”.101 Furthermore, the “law of nature” is “plain and intelligible to all rational creatures”.102 And this law “can be described as being the decree of the divine will, discernible by the light of nature”.103 As a result, reason takes the place of revelation.104 This is equivalent to saying that Locke, despite having recognised that men are not equal from a substantial point of view,105 placed them all on and the writings on tolerance, Popper (op. cit., p. 16) himself numbered Locke among the authors who turned their backs on that doctrine. It is a point we shall return to later in the text. Here, however, it is important to have clearly in mind that Locke’s idea of attaining everything through “reflection and reasoning” has no relationship with fallibilism. It is very much related to the Cartesian conceit of being able to achieve self-evident truth (cf. note 157, and the text it relates to in Chap. 2). Sabine (1961, p. 530) wrote that Locke’s philosophy presented “the anomaly” of a theory of knowledge which is in obvious contrast with his political doctrine. 98  Popper (1991), p. 16. 99  Op. cit., p. 25. Popper (1992, p. 20) also specified that our aim should not be to “to save the lives of untenable systems but, on the contrary, to select the one which is by comparison the fittest, by exposing them all to the fiercest struggle for survival”. See also Bartley (1984), p. 243; Infantino (2008), pp. 56–61. 100  Locke (1821), p. 189. 101  Op. cit., p. 191. 102  Op. cit., p. 296; see also p. 197. 103  Locke (2002), p. 111. For a more extensive treatment, cf. Infantino (2003a), pp. 67–8. 104  Cf. Pollock (1922), p. 86. 105  Locke (1821, p.  232) actually stated: “Though I have said […] that all men are by nature equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sort of equality: age or virtue may give

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the same gnoseological (and political) footing. This itself is entirely correct. But the motivation for it is unacceptable: because this equality is based on the “truth” which they all possess, whereas it should be the consequence of the condition of ignorance and fallibility shared by all human beings. And “nothing is solved when we assume everybody to know everything”.106 If such a situation of omniscience were to exist, all problems would cease to exist. In other words, “if everybody knows everything”, if each man carries “the sources of knowledge in himself”,107 we would know what we can and cannot do. There is an ordo rerum which is defined on a moment-by-moment basis. Accordingly, actions do not need any social process of co-adaptation; they are born already co-adapted.108 And since a condition of “perfect freedom” applies together with a “state of equality, wherein all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal”, the political dimension itself disappears; there is no need, when one thinks about it, for the original contract or for public power and any limitation to its sphere of action. Everything is known. And it follows that there are no unintended outcomes. There is no need to establish moral and legal rules; freedom and justice have no meaning.109 And yet the reality is very different. It is therefore necessary to find some way to cope with it. In the foreground we have the problem of ignorance. It happens that, “though the law of nature be plain and intelligible to all rational creatures”, men “biassed by their interest as well as ignorant

men a just precedency: excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level: birth may subject some, and alliance or benefits others, to pay an observance to those whom nature, gratitude, or other respects may have made it due”. 106  Here I am borrowing an expression used by Hayek (1949, p. 95) in a broader context. 107  I am making use of something Popper (1991, p. 5) formulated in general terms. 108  To use an expression of Halévy’s (1972, p. 15), there is a “natural identity of interests”. Cf. more extensively Infantino (1998), pp. 217–218. 109  Hayek (1982, vol. 2, p. 127) wrote: “freedom and justice are values that can prevail only among men with limited knowledge and would have no meaning in a society of omniscient men”. Hayek (op. cit., p.  20) also stated that we cannot proceed on “a factual assumption of omniscience which is never satisfied in real life and which, if it were ever true, would make the existence of those bodies of rules which we call morals and law not only superfluous but unaccountable and contrary to the assumption”. It should be added that the conceit of being able to evade human ignorance and fallibility is a philosophical vice which equally afflicts conceptions inspired by jusnaturalism and conceptions inspired by juspositivism.

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for want of study of it, are not apt to allow of it as a law binding to them in the application of it to their particular cases”.110 Furthermore, the human condition is a condition of scarcity, which “requires labour and materials to work on” and “necessarily introduces private possessions”.111 Hence, “notwithstanding all the privileges of the state of nature, [men], being but in an ill condition, while they remain in it, are quickly driven into society”.112 This means that it is necessary to “remedy those inconveniences of the state of nature, which necessarily follow from every man’s being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority, to which every one of that society may appeal upon any injury received, or controversy that may arise”.113 Thus, “political e civil” society is born; it originates in order to realise a “common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies”.114 Public power must not prescribe the content of each person’s life. It is enough for it to provide a service. This is the same as saying “government is the instrument and not the creator of society”.115 Consequently, we must reject monarchic absolutism: because, if monarchy gathers in itself “all, both legislative and executive power […], there is no judge to be found, no appeal lies open to any one, who may fairly, and indifferently, and with authority decide, and from whose decision relief and redress may be expected of any injury or inconveniency suffered from the prince”.116 And furthermore: “he that thinks absolute power purifies men’s blood, and corrects 110  Locke (1821), p. 296. As we know, Descartes (see note 97 in this chapter and note 157 in the previous one) had stated: “from the fact that the will, being much ampler and more extended than the understanding, I do not confine it within the same limits, but extend it also to things which I do not understand; and being itself indifferent to these, it is very easily led astray, and chooses the false for the true, and evil for good. In this way I deceive myself, and sin”. As Popper (1991, p. 8) pointed out, all theories which are based on the doctrine of “manifest truth” need to state that, if that truth does not prevail, it “must have been maliciously suppressed” or through some kind of negligence. The manifest truth, which should be known to all, in this way becomes the privileged source of knowledge of the few who are able to escape the errors, the deceptions and the degeneration of the existent. 111  Locke (1821), p. 216. 112  Op. cit., p. 296. 113  Op. cit., p. 263. 114  Op. cit., p. 260. 115  Pollock (1922), p. 100, italics added. 116  Locke (1821), pp. 263–4.

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the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced of the contrary”.117 This is not all. Locke believed it “necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other”.118 He stated that “no peace and security, no, not so much as common friendship, can ever be established or preserved amongst men so long as this opinion prevails, that dominion is founded in grace and that religion is to be propagated by force of arms”.119 He wrote that in the matter of salvation “nobody is obliged […] to yield obedience unto the admonitions or injunctions of another, further than he himself is persuaded. Every man in that has the supreme and absolute authority of judging for himself. And the reason is because nobody else is concerned in it, nor can receive any prejudice from his conduct therein”.120 He argued that “neither the right nor the art of ruling does necessarily carry along with it the certain knowledge” of anything.121 And, as we have already seen, he energetically invoked the “rule of law”, to which he entrusted the task of limiting the sphere of intervention of public power. The action of rulers is in this way circumscribed. But it is not suppressed: because it responds to the insuppressible need for “security”. Consequently, there exist different degrees of freedom between subjects and there remains the relationship between ruled and rulers.122 As it will be noted, not all parts of Locke’s work can be fitted into a homogeneous design. A more consistent theoretical construction is provided (as we shall soon see) by what Duncan Forbes called “scientific Whiggism” or also “sceptical Whiggism”.123 What it is important to point out here is that by means of the postulate of the “natural identity of interests”, Locke made public power an instrument of society and not its creator. “Sceptical Whiggism” comes to the same result, but  Op. cit., p. 265.  Locke (1988), p. 7. 119  Op. cit., pp. 17–8. 120  Op. cit., pp. 37–8. 121  Op. cit., p. 22. This quote is taken from A Letter Concerning Toleration and obviously collides with the doctrine of “manifest truth”. See note 97 in this chapter. 122  Locke (1825), p. 157. 123  See Forbes (1954, pp.  643–670); 1975, pp.  179–201). Forbes is to a large extent indebted to Halévy (1972), pp. 141–42. 117 118

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from an innovative and extensive explanation of social order, namely the co-­adaptation of human actions. In this way, Locke’s postulate is supplanted.124 And the political dimension of life is removed from any “dimming”.

3.4   The “privileged point of view on the world” and “manifest truth” Against the Exploration of the Unknown (Psychologism Versus Individualism) The relinquishment of the “privileged point of view on the world” is not only the first condition by which to achieve the limitation of the sphere of intervention of public power and prevent the rise of a prescriptive order. It is also the first prerequisite for the activation of a free and extensive process of exploration of the unknown and the correction of errors. Even scholars having a cultural outlook opposed to the market society can help us to shed light on the problem. This applies, for example, to Émile Durkheim, who saw in the idea of the Great Legislator, “endowed with almost limitless power” and “able to devise, modify, and discard laws as he pleases”, a genuine “superstition”.125 And he added that “nothing has so retarded social science as this point of view”.126 124  Referring to Locke, Parsons (1949, p. 101) wrote: “Since no more adequate conceptual scheme than the utilitarian was available at the time, it was a fortunate error that the gap was filled by what, it is now evident, was an untenable ‘metaphysical’ postulate, that the identity of interests was ‘in the nature of things’ and that never under any circumstances was there occasion to question the stability of such order”. For the sake of completeness, it should be added that in a paragraph in which he dwelt on money, Locke (1821, p. 226) provided a glimpse of a theory of social cooperation, based on voluntary exchange understood as a positive-sum game. In order to have a comprehensive formulation of this theory, one has to wait for the appearance of “sceptical Whiggism”. 125  Durkheim (1980), p. 11. The paradox is represented by the fact that Durkheim, while viewing the Great Legislator as a genuine “superstition”, never accepted the idea of unintended order. See Infantino (1998), pp. 57–99 throughout. 126  Durkheim (1980), p. 12. The same author (op. cit., p. 40–1) included Montesquieu as one of the victims of the Great Legislator’s myth. The passages which can be quoted in support of Durkheim’s judgement are numerous. And one can also recall the indulgent treatment Montesquieu accorded Sparta (1900, p. 35). He was however critical of Venice: “the legislative power is in the council, the executive in the pregadi, and the judiciary in the quarantine. But the mischief is that those different tribunals are composed of magistrates all belonging to the same body; which constitutes almost one and the same power” (op. cit., p. 153).

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The fact is that the path followed by the Great Legislator does not lead to the limitation of power. And it cannot lead to the birth of social science. The Great Legislator is a superior being, endowed with privileged knowledge. His wholly unique presence is evidence of the fact that what happens inside society does not respond to any predefined law. There does not exist therefore any knowledge which is accessible to others or an open process of exploration of the unknown, in which each person can take part in a practical manner.127 This makes social life the permanent place of the “extraordinary”, which can only be deciphered by an “extraordinary” man, who cannot be asked to limit his power; in fact, his “degrees of freedom” have to be given the broadest extension possible. This means that no moment of intersubjective life can acquire autonomy: it must give way to the omniscience of the Great Legislator. Accordingly, there is no “rule of law”. And there is no autonomous development of any social dimension: from ethics to art, from social reflection to the sciences of nature, every aspect of existence is subjected to the dominion of the “privileged point of view on the world”. There is no room for choice, intercourse and the free exploration of the unknown.128 127  Even though not entirely felicitous in his phrasing, Durkheim (1980, p. 12) wrote that anyone who accepts the idea of the Great Legislator must “deny the existence of any determinate order in human societies for, if it were true, laws, customs, and institutions would depend not on the constant nature of the state, but on the accident that brought forth one lawgiver rather than another”. See also Simmel (1908, p. 3, a page already referred to in Chap. 1, note 27). Consequently, it happens that, as in the world of the epic, the protagonists are “unique beings”, whose existential statute is “made up of a single article: Adventure is permitted” (Ortega y Gasset 1914, pp. 374–377). Mises (1978a, p. 89) stated: “the radiant hero, enlightened by the Spirit of the world, shall lead the people and the State to salvation. The greatest reproach the statalist makes against modern sociology and historiography is that of having destroyed faith in the superhuman capabilities of great men. For the statalist dreams of a saviour, a Führer, a dictator”. 128  This makes it possible to say summarily that the presence of the Great Legislator prevents secularisation. While the “privileged point of view on the world” is legitimated through religious belief, everything “is inexorably linked to the will of God, the sole and decisive reality. Whatever happens […] depends on the divine discretion, the inscrutable and inescapable decrees of God”. In such a situation, what can a man do when confronted by a problem? “Reason, analyse, compare, infer, verify, conclude? Not at all: the first thing [… he must] do is pray, address a prayer to God, in order that he be enlightened”. There is no other solution apart from “beseeching God to grant the revelation of his decrees”. If God condescends to reveal himself, he deprives his believers of any personal idea and turns them into “mouths of the Highest”. Their language “will in no way be like the logos of the reasoner […], but will consist of expressing today what God has decided and decreed will happen tomorrow, what

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The position which Durkheim prevalently takes also rules out the possibility of the solution being provided by some kind of contractualist assumption.129 On this, Sombart wrote very tersely: “The founders of modern sociology need to be sought among the staunchest opponents of jusnaturalism and contractualist theory”.130 In fact, while the myth of the Great Legislator assigns the monopoly of knowledge to a “special” individual, jusnaturalism and/or contractualism are fuelled by the doctrine of the universally “manifest truth”. There no longer is a privileged source of knowledge, because all men are equal. But they are not equal as a consequence of their ignorance and fallibility. They are equal as a result of a “truth” which they all possess. Everyone knows everything.131 All that [… they] say will be foresaying under the influence of God, it will be prophesying” (Ortega y Gasset 1940, pp. 535–536). One should also add that, if in the place of religious belief there is some kind of finalistic conception of history, things do not change: because, as we have already emphasised, in this case too, what prevails is the monopoly of truth, which underpins any teleocratic order. Strauss (1965, p. 84) wrote—and it is of interest to underscore it—that “philosophy cannot emerge, or nature cannot be discovered, if authority as such is not doubted or as long as at least any general statement of any being whatsoever is accepted on trust”. All this is true, but it did not prevent Strauss himself from falling victim to an inextinguishable Platonism. 129  And yet Durkheim made very broad concessions towards Rousseau. Cf. Infantino (1998), pp. 67–76. 130  Sombart (1923), p.  9. See Jonas (1968, vol. 4, p.  153–4), Mongardini (1970, pp. 77–132); Infantino (1998, pp. 2–4). However, for the sake of completeness, it should be also added that Sombart accepted the idea of a terrible Legislator. He believed that the Führer took orders “only from God”, the “supreme” Führer of the universe, and that Führertum was a “progressive revelation” (Sombart 1937, p.  194). See more extensively Mises (1978a), pp. 102–3; Mises (1978b), pp. 33–4. 131  Strauss (1965, p. 81 wrote: “a political life that does not know of the idea of natural right is necessarily unaware of the possibility of science as such”. Some clarification is needed: Jaeger (1947, p. 357) rightly stressed that the “so-called philosophers” of Ionia, the “first thinkers”, “are not concerned with human life and society, but with the external world and the ceaseless process of coming” which “they called physis [… what] we usually translate by nature”. Science was born from the opposition between “nature”, thus understood, and “tradition”. This point of view was fully supported by Strauss (1965, p. 91). However, he did not take into account that the Presocratic theory of knowledge was different from the Platonic one: the Presocratics were fallibilists, Plato was an absolutist (cf. Popper 1991, vol. 1, pp. 148–54). Very aptly, Ortega y Gasset (1960b, p. 413) stressed that philosophy originated at a moment in which peoples entered into an “age of freedom”; and was a “colonial” product, born in the Ionian colonies and then imported into Athens: Thales was the first “figure of a ‘scientific’ thinker to exist on the planet” (op. cit., pp. 410–411). Unlike Thales,

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may be needed is a transitional phase for the recovery of the “manifest truth”, in the case in which “perverse” men, evading that truth and manipulating others, try to pursue their own “selfish” interests.132 Therefore, since it does not lead to any limitation in the sphere of intervention of public power, the doctrine of “manifest truth” does not lead to a critical discussion and to science. And there is more to it than that. It is a doctrine which encourages the idea of a “natural identity of interests”. What then happens is that, if it is accepted on account of what it promises, this postulate leads to an untenable conclusion: it excludes the existence of the political dimension of life. And if the limitations of the “natural identity of interests” are perceived and an attempt to remedy them is undertaken with the stipulation of a political pact, one falls into an equally untenable position133: the idea of a contract drawn up at the origins of society “is not only an historical myth, but also […] a methodological myth”, which “can hardly be seriously discussed”, for the reason that “man or rather his ancestor was social prior to being human”.134 Realising now that the state of nature and the original contract are historical and methodological myths, we are able us to cast light on a number of not insignificant points.135 First of all, if “man or rather his ancestor was social prior to being human”, there cannot exist any human being living in pre-social conditions. Man is born, grows and develops within society, Plato was not aiming at critical discussion, but at the reaffirmation of a “privileged point of view on the world”. And no science can originate from an absolutist conception of natural law. 132  Among those who blame the action of the “wicked” for the blindness which prevents everyone from knowing everything, one needs to make specific mention of Rousseau and Marx. Rousseau compared a supposed state of nature with the situation brought about through a fraudulent pact, by means of which the “rich man” resorting to “specious reasons” brought others over to his own “cause” (see Infantino 1998, pp. 67–76 and the references provided there). Marx made use of the jusnaturalist theory of labour value to “explain” the exploitation of workers. The fraudulent pact and exploitation were made possible by the blinding of the many by the few. One therefore needs to recover the situation in which everyone knows everything. This, in the case of Rousseau, allows a new social pact to be subscribed, and, in the case of Marx, brings an end to the economy. On Marx’s indebtedness to jusnaturalism, cf. Lindsay (1925), pp. 109–125. 133  Popper (1966, vol. 2, p. 93) defined it as a “desperate position”. 134  Ibid. See also Chap. 1, note 22. 135  Rousseau (1997b, p. 125) himself, had no hesitation, in a moment of sincerity, in writing that the state of nature “perhaps never did exist, […] probably never will exist”.

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through the intersubjective relationship. Control of one’s instincts and the acquisition of language, to mention the first things which specifically characterise human life, are generated by the fact of living together and the cooperation which ensues from it. Individuals differentiated themselves from groups only when they began to choose what they could do for others and what they could ask of others. And the whole process occurred without any prior planning. Imagining a human life in pre-social conditions is an outright cognitive distortion, which leads “to operate with the idea of a beginning of society, and with the idea of a human nature and a human psychology as they existed prior to society”, whereas instead “social institutions, and with them, typical social regularities or sociological laws, must have existed prior to what some people are pleased to call […] human psychology”.136 The spread of the psychologism characterising jusnaturalist and contractualist theories led to the wide conviction that individualism is the condition of man isolated from other men, or the negation of the social relationship. And yet what we have said so far shows that this “identification” has no foundation. Psychologism disregards relationships with others; individualism on the other hand is the product of voluntary social cooperation, of cooperation, that is, based on the choice of what to ask and what to offer.137 That is not all. Using the idea of a man who pre-exists the social condition and who consciously decides to “bring about” society completely avoids the problem of unintended consequences. And it fuels the illusion that social institutions are a mere psychologistic “projection”. This gives the idea that they can be shaped and re-shaped on the basis of any wish or predefined plan. And, if reality differs from that wish or plan, the responsibility cannot be attributed to the human condition or to unintended consequences or complexity, but rather to the faulty psychological disposition of human beings, particularly those who hold differing points of view. It is thus sufficient to act on human beings, reshape them and bring them to “conformity” and to have social institutions which mirror the

 Popper (1966), vol. 2, p. 93.   This is why Hayek (1949) rightly spoke of “true” individualism and “false” individualism. 136 137

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perfection of the plan.138 This means that taken to its logical consequences, psychologism is hostile to individualism.139 It is no accident that Sombart wrote that it is mistaken to include the theory of contract among the nominalist theories, because that leads “logically to the hypothesis of the general will of the State”.140

3.5   The Toppling of the Myth of the Great Legislator Duncan Forbes argued that the “destruction” of the myth of the Great Legislator “was perhaps the most original and daring coup of the social science of the Scottish Enlightenment”.141 But it should also be added that the Scottish Enlightenment also destroyed the myth of manifest truth. And it is also appropriate to recall that what those thinkers accomplished cannot be separated from the work of Bernard de Mandeville.142 Turning to Forbes again, one could more accurately say that the demolition of the myth of the Great Legislator and of manifest truth is due to “sceptical Whiggism”.143 And the reasons for this are easily understood. In order to free oneself from those conceptions, it is necessary to embrace a fallibilist theory of knowledge and weed out the habitat in which those myths take root and flourish.

138  Taken to its logical consequences, contractualism contributes to fuelling what Hayek called “fatal conceit” (see note 159  in the previous chapter) or also “constructivism” (cf. note 82 in this chapter). 139  Bobbio (1990, p. 116) wrote: “Eliminate an individualistic conception of society, you will no longer be able to justify democracy as a form of government. What better definition of democracy than that which states that in it individuals, all individuals, have a share of sovereignty. And how can this concept have been made irreversibly tight without reversing the relationship between power and freedom, making freedom precede power?”. We shall see later that, in order to place the issue in the right light, there is an indispensable intermediary; which is liberalism. Bobbio’s comments are in any case useful because they show that antiindividualism underpins all “reactionary doctrines” (op. cit., p. 117). And this confirms that the situation represented by the state of nature, from which Hobbes proceeded to posit the need for Leviathan, is not individualistic. It is pure psychologism. 140  Sombart (1923), p. 7. 141  Forbes (1966), p. XXIV. 142  Hayek (1978), pp. 249–66. See also Infantino (1998), pp. 9–40. 143  If one recalls the influence of Pierre Bayle on Mandeville, it becomes even clearer how appropriate the expression “sceptical Whiggism” is. For an extensive discussion of Bayle’s work, cf. Paganini (1980). On the cultural relationship between Bayle and Mandeville, see Scribano (1980).

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A. Hume’s Law  The act of “demolition” took place on three fronts. The first “attack” was unleashed against the pretension of having a science of Good and Evil, i.e. of having a knowledge of Virtue. Mandeville wrote: “we are ever pushing our reason which way soever we feel passion to draw it, and self-love pleads to all human creatures for their different views, still furnishing every individual with arguments to justify their” choices.144 Hume argued that morality “consists not in any matter of fact, which can be discovered by the understanding […], morality is not an object of reason”.145 And he added: “In whichever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions, and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escape you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflection into your breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but it is the object of feeling, not of reason”.146 Smith stated: “reason cannot render any particular object either agreeable or disagreeable to the mind for its own sake. Reason can show that this object is the means of obtaining some other […] and in this manner may render it either agreeable or disagreeable for the sake of something else. But nothing can be agreeable or disagreeable for its own sake, which is not rendered such by immediate sense and feeling. If virtue, therefore, in every particular instance, necessarily pleases for its own sake and if vice as certainly displeases the mind, it cannot be reason, but immediate sense and feeling”.147 Mandeville, Hume and Smith thus agree in separating facts from values. This is a position known as Hume’s law (according to which it is not logically possible to derive prescriptive statements from descriptive ones), but in fact it characterises the theories of all three of these thinkers. It follows from that law that, since there is no science of Good and Evil, there can be no truth which is embodied in a Legislator or which is manifest to all. And it follows that no belief, whether religious or philosophical, can be imposed on the strength of “superior” self-evident knowledge. This erects an unbreachable defensive barrier for freedom of conscience. It is the basis on which individuals who subscribe to different religious and philosophical conceptions of the world can live together collectively. This is why  Mandeville (1924), vol. 1, p. 333.  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 177. 146  Ibid. 147  Smith (1976a), p. 320. 144 145

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Passerin d’Entrèves wrote that “the logical leap from fact to value  – Hume’s law – is the main barrier with which, in the perspective of modern man, the doctrine of natural law collides”.148 B. The Dispersal of Knowledge  Smith opened up a second front of “attack”. He objected that “every individual […], in is local situation, judge much better that any statesman or lawgiver can do for him”.149 And “the statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it”.150 This is the theorem of dispersed knowledge. And Hayek, who in the twentieth century made it the basis of his extensive work, articulated it in the following terms: “scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge […], there beyond question is a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and space. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possess unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active co-operation”.151

148  Passerin d’Entrèves (1980), p. 196. The quotation is taken from the foreword to the Spanish edition of Passerin’s work. This foreword is contained as an appendix in the Italian translation of Passerin’s book. 149  Smith (1976b), vol. 1, p. 456. 150  Ibid. Mindful of Smith’s passage, Burke (1951, p. 153) subsequently wrote: “I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases”. And further: “Though you were to join the commission all the directors of […] academies to the directors of the Caisse d’Escompte, one old experienced peasant is worth them all. I have got more information, upon a curious and interesting branch of husbandry, in a short conversation with a Carthusian monk, than I have derived from all the Bank directors that I have ever conversed with” (op. cit., p.  188). Therefore, we need to act “under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind” (op. cit., pp. 243–4, italics added). 151  Hayek (1949), p. 80.

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This shows that there is no man who can be omniscient. And there is no truth which can be manifest to all, since each individual’s knowledge is different and the knowledge of time and place dispersed inside society is boundless. Accordingly, it cannot be unlimited. One must allow citizens to mobilise their knowledge freely. This is equivalent to saying that Smith’s theorem performs two functions simultaneously: it strikes against the basis on which the Great Legislator establishes his pretension to unlimited power; and it explains that, as a consequence of the lack of a “privileged point of view on the world” and of manifest truth, both rational development and socio-economic growth depend on the use of knowledge which is highly dispersed within society.152 C. Against the Moral Aristocraticism of the Virtuous Man  Hume’s law and Smith’s theorem deal an irreversible blow to the myth of the Great Legislator (as well as to the myth of manifest truth). It is, however, possible for the idea of the “privileged point of view on the world” to be summoned back to life by means of the figure of the “virtuous”, “good” or “holy” man of the Platonic-Christian tradition. This is where the third front of “attack” is situated. Mandeville energetically tore apart the veil of that moral aristocraticism. He had no hesitation in phrasing the question in the crudest terms: “If you ask me where to look for those beautiful shining qualities of prime ministers, and great favourites of princes that are so finely painted in dedications, addresses, epitaphs, funeral sermons and inscriptions, I answer there, and no where else […]. This has often made me compare the virtues of great men to your large China jars: they make a fine shew, and are ornamental even to a chimney; one would by the bulk they appear in, and the value that is set upon them, think they might be very useful, but look into a thousand of them, and you will find nothing in them but dust and cobwebs”.153

152  It may be worthwhile quoting the following passage by Ferguson (1966, p. 124): “it is probable that the government of [… some great] states took its rise from the situation and genius of the people, not from the projects of a single man; that the celebrated warrior and statesman, who are considered the founders of those nations, only acted a superior part among numbers who were disposed to the same institutions; and they left to posterity a renown, pointing them out as the inventors of many practices which had been already in use, and which helped to form their own manners and genius, as well as those of their countrymen”. 153  Mandeville (1924), vol. 1, p. 168.

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The solution of the problem does not consist of “converting” others to some presumed virtue, because this always leads to the reduction of the degrees of freedom of the Other: ethics becomes a means of oppression. Mandeville obviously recognised that, “if virtue, religion and future happiness were sought after by the generality of mankind, with the same sollicitude, as [… other pleasures], it would certainly be best that none but men of good lives, and known ability, should have any place in government whatever […]. The most knowing, the most virtuous, and the least self-interested ministers are the best”.154 And yet he added: “in the mean time there must be ministers […]. Swearing and drunkenness are crying sins among seafaring men, and I should think it a very desirable blessing to the nation, if it was possible to reform them: but all this while we must have sailors”.155 What conclusion can we draw from this? Following Burke’s example, we can place all the limitations of human conduct into the categories of “ignorance and fallibility”.156 It is a condition which no “cause” can change. And this makes it clear that whatever the social group within which we live, “the chief characteristic of the command hierarchy, or any group in our society, is not knowledge but ignorance. Consider that any one person can know only a fraction of what is going on around him. Much of what that persons knows or believes will be false rather than true […]. At any given time, vastly more is not known than is known […]. It seems possible, then, that in organizing ourselves into a hierarchy of authority for the purpose of increasing efficiency, we may really be institutionalizing ignorance”.157 It follows that it is necessary to turn our backs on any form of gnoseological absolutism. One needs to move in a completely different direction. As we shall see more clearly, Mandeville and the Scottish moralists did not intend to “prescribe” virtue or to positively say which content men were to give to their actions. Instead, they tried to identify the conditions which prevent each individual from damaging others. This represents the complete abandonment of the idea of “human perfection”.158

 Op. cit., vol. 2, p. 335.  Ibid. 156  Cf. note 150 in this chapter. 157  Kline, Martin (1958), p. 70. It is significant that Popper (1991, p. 29) wrote that “our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite”. 158  Strauss (1965, p.  180) highlighted that this was something which took place after Machiavelli and Hobbes. His comment is true. However, it should be pointed out that not 154 155

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3.6   Condition of Scarcity, Private Property, Luxury and Social Conflict There is no science of Good and Evil, knowledge of time and place is highly dispersed, there is no man who can indicate moral perfection to us, nor can perfection be a standard which all subscribe to. How should we proceed? The first problem of the human condition stems from scarcity. Mandeville recognised this and wrote that society is “entirely built upon the variety of our wants”.159 Hume argued that “the situation of external objects is their easy change, joined to their scarcity in comparison of the wants and desires of men”.160 Smith stated: “Nature produces for every animal every thing that is sufficient to support it without having recourse to the improvement of the original production”, but “such is the delicacy of man alone that no object is produced to his liking”.161 How can we respond to the problem of scarcity? In this case too the way out indicated by Mandeville, Hume and Smith is completely opposite to the Platonic-Christian one. Scarcity (any kind of scarcity) is what lies at the root of social cooperation and conflict. And it is because of this that “men have been obliged to […] distinguish betwixt their own goods and those of others”.162 Private property originated to separate what belongs to us from what belongs to others. It is a legal institution which works to regulate the conflict generated by scarcity and which, once it is recognised, moulds the entire legal system. In a condition of abundance, there would be no private property and the very idea of justice would cease to exist.163 In the past, when private property and its legal protection still had to be all those who exclude the idea of “human perfection” from their theories move in the same direction. Duo, si idem dicunt, non est idem. Machiavelli remained attached to the myth of foundation and sought the “new prince”; Hobbes proposed the Leviathan. But Mandeville, Hume and Smith theorised individual freedom of choice. The fact is that, if we have already acknowledged ourselves as being ignorant and fallible, we must relinquish the idea of “human perfection”. We shall soon see how the solution outlined by Mandeville, Hume and Smith is structured. 159  Mandeville (1924), vol. 2, p. 349. 160  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 199. 161  Smith (1976c), p. 487. 162  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 200. 163  Op. cit., pp. 200–1. Smith himself was obviously aware of “Harrington and Bernier’s theorem” (cf. note 86  in this chapter). Smith (1976b, vol. 2, pp.  729–30) also analysed Bernier at length. He owned an edition of the Voyages, published in Amsterdam in 1710.

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institutionalised, everything fell into the hands of a restricted “society of robbers and murderers”, who seized the product of other people’s work.164 This is the reason why Smith stated during a lecture given in Glasgow on 24 February 1763: “We find that at the time of the Trojan war […] were pirates […] looked on as any way dishonourable. We see that in the Odyssey, Ulysses, who very seldom gives a true account of himself, is often asked whether he was a merchant or a pirate. The account he generally gives of himself was that he was a pirate. We see too that this was a much more honourable character than that of a merchant, which was allways looked on with great contempt by them. A pirate is a military man who acquires his livelyhood by warlike exploits”.165 Mandeville and the Scottish moralists did not just embrace private property. They also espoused a “corollary”. One tries to escape the condition of scarcity also by expanding the possibilities of life: by increasing available goods and producing new goods. This is the path which leads to the phenomenon which we commonly call luxury. Mandeville clarified as follows: “If every thing is to be luxury (as in strictness it ought) that is not immediately necessary to make man subsist as he is a living creature, there is nothing else to be found in the world, no not even among the naked savages; of which it is not probable that there are any but what by this time have made some improvements upon their former manner of living; and either in the preparation of their eatables, the ordering of their huts, or otherwise, added something to what once sufficed them”.166 In “one sense every thing may be call’d so, and in another there is no such thing”.167 If you “would have a frugal […] society, the best policy is to preserve men in their native simplicity, strive not to increase their numbers; let them never be acquainted with strangers […], but remove and keep from them every thing that might raise their desire, or improve their understanding”.168 “Man never exerts himself but when he is rous’d by his desires”.169 “They, that would revive a Golden Age, must be free,

164  Smith (1976a), p.  86. Therefore, the Scottish moralists knew that state organisation originated as a means of “political exploitation”. 165  Smith (1976c), p. 224. 166  Mandeville (1924), vol. 1, p. 107. 167  Op. cit., p. 123. 168  Op. cit., p. 185. 169  Op. cit., p. 184. Mandeville (ibid.) also added: “While they lie dormant, and there is nothing to raise them, his excellence and abilities will be for ever undiscover’d, and the lump-

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for acorns”.170 “The Dutch may ascribe their present grandeur to the virtue and frugality of their ancestors as they please; but what made that contemptible spot of ground so considerable among the principal powers of Europe has been their political wisdom in postponing every thing to merchandize and navigation, the unlimited liberty of conscience that enjoy’d among them, and the unwearied application with which they have always made use of the most effectual means to encourage and increase trade in general”.171 Hume’s position is not entirely identical to Mandeville’s.172 And yet Hume argued that the term luxury “means great refinement in the gratification of senses”.173 He added that “any degree of it may be innocent or blameable, according to the age, or country, or condition of the person”.174 And he specified: “The bounds between the virtue and the vice cannot ish machine, without the influence of his passions, may be justly compar’d to a huge windmill without a breath of air”. 170  Op. cit., p. 37. 171  Op. cit., p. 185. Referring to the Spartans, Mandeville (op. cit., p. 245) had no hesitation in stating: “there never was a Nation whose greatness was more empty than their […] the only thing they could be proud of was that they enjoy’d nothing”. A position which was the exact opposite of Mandeville’s was expounded by Rousseau (cf. Sect. 2.5 in the previous chapter). As we have already indicated, Rousseau was influenced by Fénelon (1847), who had extolled Minos’s Crete and Lycurgus’s Sparta. Rousseau (1997a, p. 45) believed that “the rich and the learned only corrupt one another” and openly criticised (op. cit., p. 25) Mandeville and (as already mentioned) commented ironically on Voltaire (op. cit., pp. 19–20). Voltaire, concurring with the positions expressed on the issue by Mandeville and JeanFrançois Melon, celebrated luxury on many occasions, starting with his poem Le Mondain and the later Défence du Mondain. Voltaire (1876, p. 454) truly struck home when he stated: “the luxury of Athens gave rise to great men of every kind. Sparta had some good commanders, and yet not so many as the other cities”. The debate on luxury is thus one aspect of the opposition between the Spartan and the Athenian ways of life. Referring to the “virtuous” vision of Rousseau, d’Alembert (1893, p. 128) aptly wrote that “vices would remain and in addition we would have ignorance”. Pocock pointed out that Montesquieu (1900, p. 243) defined the idea that trade and luxury could entail the corruption of manners as “Plato’s complaints” (“la plainte de Platon”). Pocock (1985, p. 122) himself renamed the concern as “la plainte de Rousseau” (“Rousseau’s complaints”). Whenever a market society advances, there is always a reaction against it, based on gnoseological absolutism and the myth of virtue. For an overall vision of the debate on luxury during the Eighteenth Century in France, see Borghero (1974). 172  Referring to Mandeville, Hume (1903, p.  276) wrote: “men of libertine principles bestow praises even on vicious luxury, and represent it as highly advantageous to society”. 173  Op. cit., p. 275. 174  Ibid.

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[…] be exactly fixed, more than in other moral subjects. To imagine that the gratifying of any sense, or the indulging of any delicacy in meat, drink, or apparel, is of itself a vice, can never enter into a head, that is not disordered by the frenzies of enthusiasm”.175 There is thus a reason for Hume to point out: “In times when industry and the arts flourish, men are kept in perpetual occupation, and enjoy, as their reward, the occupation itself, as well as those pleasure which are the fruit of their labour. The mind acquires new vigour; enlarges its powers and faculties; and, by an assiduity in honest industry, both satisfies its natural appetites, and prevents the growth of unnatural ones, which commonly spring up, when nourished by ease and idleness. Banish those arts from society, you deprive men both of action and of pleasure; and, leaving nothing but indolence in their place, you even destroy the relish of indolence, which never is agreeable, but when it succeeds to labour, and recruits the spirits, exhausted by too much application and fatigue”.176 Smith himself dealt extensively with the virtuous man, who is capable of controlling his feelings. But he reached the conclusion that nature deceives us. And it is “this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealth, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and a great high road of communications to the different nations of the earth. The earth by those labours of mankind has been obliged to redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater multitude of inhabitants”.177 Elizabeth Rawson wrote that, “with the victory of Adam Smith’s economic doctrine”, among the Whigs there prevailed “the idea that Sparta

 Ibid.  Op. cit., p. 277. Hume (op. cit., p. 287) concluded: “He cannot cure every vice by substituting a virtue in its place. Very often he can only cure one vice by another; and in that case he ought to prefer what is least pernicious to society”. Hume (op. cit., p. 268 and p. 326) was a severe critic of society, understood in the Spartan manner, as a “fortified camp”. Therefore, one must “govern men by other passions, and animate them with a spirit of avarice and industry, art and luxury” (op. cit., p. 269). 177  Smith (1976a), pp. 183–184. 175 176

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was, as a society, peculiar and irrelevant, even unnatural”.178 And this is wholly acceptable. But one should not overlook the fact that the path had been opened up by Mandeville and Hume. And one should also remember that Mandeville himself had been able to benefit from the work of Pierre Bayle.179 The question, however, does not involve the assignment of any temporal priority. What counts is the perspective adopted by Mandeville, Hume and Smith: since it depicts the work of human beings as a never-concluded labour, which “always needs to be restarted from the beginning”180: just like Sisyphus, man “must always return to pushing up to the top of the mountain the rock which eternally falls back down to the valley floor”.181 In other words, scarcity is insuppressible and the economic dimension can never cease to be. It is an outcome of the permanent imbalance between our plans and what the outside environment affords us. And this is the consequence of the fact that “human necessity indifferently embraces what is objectively necessary and what is superfluous”.182 There is more to it than that. “Man is an ontological centaur, one half of whom is obviously immersed in nature, while the other half transcends it”.183 One can live in a situation in which “the circle of possibilities” only just extends beyond the minimum which we desire or one can live having available a vast range of possibilities.184 The former circumstance does not prevent living from being “a term which is  Rawson (1969), p. 350.  Overturning Fénelon’s position (Borghero 1974, p. XVI), Bayle (1966a, vol. 2, p. 279b) had written: “Do you not realize that the counsels of Jesus Christ lead to the ruin of the passions and occupations without which human society cannot survive? Do you not see that if all men were to scrupulously abide by the evangelical counsels, the whole world would become a Trappist abbey?” Therefore, it is not inappropriate to quote the following passage by Swift (2004, p. 3): “I hope no reader imagines me so weak to stand up in the defence of real Christianity, such as used in primitive times (if we may believe the authors of those ages) to have an influence upon men’s belief and actions. To offer at the restoring of that, would indeed be a wild project: it would be to dig up foundations; to destroy at one blow all the wit, and half the learning of the kingdom; to break the entire frame and constitution of things; to ruin trade, extinguish arts and sciences, with the professors of them; in short, to turn our courts, exchanges, and shops into deserts”. 180  I am making use of an expression from Ortega y Gasset (1960a), p. 138. 181  Ibid. 182  Ortega y Gasset (1939), p. 327. 183  Op. cit., p. 338. 184  Ortega y Gasset (1960b), pp. 413–414. 178 179

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always mobile and unlimitedly variable”, which always asks us to make the superfluous our necessity185; the latter situation produces no obligations for anyone. This brings us to understand that the territory of luxury coincides with that of choice, with that of a “very large world”, in which there appear “new techniques, new arts and new pleasures”.186 It is also a world in which an extensive process of exploration of the unknown is kindled, which does not make us masters of our own destiny, but without which no growth of rationality is possible.187 It is a context in which the conflict which originates from scarcity is tempered by a continuing process of going beyond the horizon of possibilities and impossibilities. Those who wish to free themselves from the continual transformation of the superfluous into the necessary can only “strait-jacket” man, depriving him of all his preferences and all his freedom. Despite being presented as a reshaping of the human nature and a redemption from conflict, this is nothing but “repression”.

3.7   The “discovery of society” As we have been repeating so far, the human condition finds its initial problem in scarcity. This generates the need to act. But the energies of individuals are inadequate. Hence the birth of cooperation among men, which originally (as we have stressed in Chap. 1) took the shape of coercive cooperation, as the “subjugation of one group of men by another”.188 In other words, the problem of scarcity was addressed by resort to warfare, the most extreme political instrument, which confers power through the elimination or total subjugation of the other. This is the same logic which inspired the action of the Great Legislator, whose presence always produces an order of a prescriptive nature, an order, that is, in which the compatibility of the actions of individuals is intentionally determined by the coercive decisions of the holders of public power. As we have seen, Mandeville, Hume and Smith toppled the myth of the Great legislator. If their work had ended there, they would not have provided us with any alternative. Instead, alongside the pars destruens, the work of these authors also contains a pars construens, which entrusts the  Ortega y Gasset (1939), p. 330.  Op. cit., p. 415. 187  Hayek (1982), vol. 3, p. 176. 188  See Chap. 1, note 139. 185 186

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response to the problem of scarcity to voluntary cooperation. It is an approach which is diametrically opposed to that followed by the Great Legislator. He acted on the basis that the quantity of resources available was given and that intersubjective relations were zero-sum: the advantages of one side were the consequences of the disadvantages of the other; and it is for this reason that the imposition of a coercive order was made necessary. On the other hand, Mandeville, Hume and Smith worked on the basis that cooperation, because it benefits every involved party, can take on a voluntary character. And they saw in social order the unintended outcome of actions directed to pursue aims which were decided individually. This led these thinkers to follow a path which is also different from the one suggested by the doctrine of “natural identity of interests”, where co-­ adaptation of actions is assumed, and from contractualism, where order derives from an intentionally underwritten pact. Mandeville structured his analysis in full consistency with this. Starting out from the condition of scarcity, it was easy for him to see need as “the cement of civil society”.189 In other words, “The reciprocal services which all men pay to one another are the foundation of the society”.190 Cooperation and society are thus two names denoting the same reality, whose “superstructure” has as its base precisely the “reciprocal services, which men do to each other”.191 This means that, since we live in a condition of scarcity, “to get these services perform’d by other, when we have occasion for them, is the grand and constant sollicitude in life of every individual person”.192 And, in order to attain this goal, everyone, “turning the vices and frailties of others to his own advantage, endeavours to pick up a living the easiest and shortest way his talent and abilities will let him”.193 Moving away from Mandeville’s language, one could simply say that we can obtain what we need, which is what improves our situation, only if we are capable of providing our services to others. And this makes the life of each person a “continual bartering” or commerce.194  Mandeville (1924), vol. 2, p. 350.  Op. cit., vol. 1, p. 221. 191  Op. cit., vol. 2, p. 349. 192  Ibid. 193  Op. cit., vol. 1, p. 60. 194  Op. cit., vol. 2, p. 349. Bayle (1966b, vol. 3, p. 174a) had already spoken of the “joys of mutual exchange”. Among the founding fathers of sociology, it was later Simmel (1908, pp. 40–1) who laid most emphasis on the idea of social “commerce” and placed actors in the “dual role” of providers and beneficiaries of services. We have already pointed out (cf. Chap. 189 190

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Hume, in turn, argued that the interest of each individual is “advantageous” to others.195 And Adam Smith later expressed the logic of social cooperation in the following terms: “man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, propose to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want”.196 Each action therefore needs to be divided into two parts: what we do directly to accomplish our goals and what we need to do for the benefit of others in order to obtain their cooperation.197 Actions co-adapt by means of the voluntary exchange of means. In this way, whoever wishes to satisfy their needs or accomplish their plans contributes, through the services they provide, to the achievement of the purposes of others. There is no sharing: the goals of each do not give rise to a common scale of priorities. In other words, the exchange of means is voluntary, but cooperation in the goals of others is unintended. What originates as a result is a social order which is not pursued in individual plans and which no one can design beforehand.198 This is exactly what Adam Smith expressed with the image of the “invisible hand”199: a social mechanism which, in the light of what has just been said, has nothing mysterious about it. It only indicates that each individual act is of necessity Janus-like: looking in two directions, towards the satisfaction of one’s own ends as well as the ends of others.

1, note 69) that, following Simmel, Ortega y Gasset (1957, p. 146) saw in social relationship a genuine “double entry” system. 195  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 231. 196  Smith (1976b), vol. 1, p.  26. Previously to Smith, Montesquieu (1900, p.  25) had already written: “each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest”. And Tucker (1931, p. 92) had formulated the same concept, arguing that “those efforts” made towards pursuing personal advantage “promote public interest”. 197  Cf. Infantino (2008), p. 311. 198  Furthermore, “if social phenomena showed no order except insofar as they were consciously designed, there would indeed be no room for theoretical sciences of society and there would be, as often argued, only problems of psychology” (see Chap. 1, note 18). 199  Smith (1976b), vol. 1, p. 456.

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The originality of the position advanced by Mandeville and the Scottish moralists lies in the fact that they countered the idea of an intended order, established by a centralising mind, with that of unintended order: a compatibility of actions which is established without following a unifying plan. Consequently, there is no compulsory hierarchy of ends and no agreement on the aims to be pursued. From this there ensue three important consequences: (a) the convenience of an exchange is assessed by each actor: each acts only if they consider the comparison between what is ceded and done for the Other and what is received in exchange as advantageous200; (b) we cooperate in accomplishing the ends of others, but normally we are not aware of what they are and even if we were we might not agree with them201: thus, each individual unintentionally furthers the pursuit of the goals of others; (c) the lack of an agreement on ends intensifies and extends social cooperation, which is usually cooperation among strangers202: this is the birth of the Great Society.203 All this can definitely deserve to be called the “discovery of society”.204 This is the specifically construens part of the theory developed by Mandeville and the Scottish moralists. And it shows that voluntary cooperation can replace coercive cooperation and that, therefore, the solution of the

200  Improving the situation of a party does not therefore require worsening the situation of the Other. The exchange is a positive sum game, since each participant, on his own scale of preferences, attributes greater importance to what he receives in comparison with what he gives. This is why Comte (1970, p. 220) stated that economists have freed us from the “lamentable and immoral prejudice” which presents the “improvement of the material condition of some as if this could only be derived from a corresponding deterioration of others”. Mandeville (1924, vol. 1, pp.  108–116), Hume (1903, pp.  316–38) and Smith (1976a, pp.  228–229; 1976b, vol. 1, pp.  473–498) extended the logic of domestic exchange to international trade. According to Viner (1960, p. 292), “in so far as the classical theory of international trade had one definite originator, it was David Hume”. As we know, this theoretical construction was perfected by Ricardo (2001, pp. 85–103). Mises (1966, pp. 157–170) gave Ricardo’s theory the name of “law of association”, by which he wished precisely to indicate that cooperation is successful because it is a positive sum game. 201  Cf. Hayek (1982, vol. 2), p.  110, where the author adds: “So long as collaboration presupposes common purposes, people with different aims are necessarily enemies who may fight each other for the same means”. 202  Smith (1976b), vol. 1, p. 26. 203  Hayek (1982, vol. 2, p. 109) wrote: “The Great Society arose through the discovery that men can live together in peace and mutually benefiting each other without agreeing on the particular aims which they severally pursue”. 204  See Wolin (2006), pp. 273–6.

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economic problem (i.e. scarcity) can be entrusted to social relationships based on individual choice rather than public power. What underpins this order? There “could be no religion so strict, no system of morality so refin’d, nor theory so well meaning, but some people might pretend and follow it, and yet be loose livers, and wicked in their practice”.205 What can be done? Where can one find a solution? Turning one’s back on omniscience and moral perfection means rejecting the idea of the “rule of men”. One cannot base collective life on the profile of a totally imaginary actor, who is incapable of “capturing” any fragment of reality. Nor can one delude oneself into thinking that it is possible that what some men can “occasionally” do can be made something permanent.206 On the other hand, social order is not jeopardised by those who comply with the rules of living together, but by those who infringe them. Those men who gain the confidence of their counterparts through their conduct are only welcome. This is not where the problem lies. What it really requires is to ensure that men do not do the worst when they are at their worst.207 All that remains therefore is to seek rules which, unlike the prescriptive ones, do not dictate the content of actions, but allow ­individual freedom of choice and restrict themselves to laying down what may not be done by each actor, that is evading the obligations attached to an initiative or causing damage, in the widest sense of the term, to one’s neighbour. These rules are the general and abstract norms of law which, by generating obligations solely as a consequence of the prior activation of a facultas agendi, establish the boundaries between actions.208 This makes (voluntary) social cooperation possible and definitively ushers the Great

 Mandeville (1732), p. 34.  Hayek (1949), p. 11. 207  Ibid. 208  Ferguson (1792, vol. 2, p. 458) rightly wrote: “Liberty or freedom is not, as the origin of the name may seem to imply, an exemption from all restraint, but rather the most effectual application of every just restraint to all the member of a free state, whether they be magistrates or subjects. It is under a just restraint only that every person is safe, and cannot be invaded, either the freedom of his person, his property, or innocent action”. Millar (1803, vol. 4, p.  267) stated that justice requires me to “pay my debts, or perform the services, which by my contracts, or by the course of my behaviour, I have given [my neighbour] reason to expect from me”. Obviously, behind Ferguson and Millar lies the lesson of Hume (1930, vol. 2, pp. 219–42) on “translation by consent” and “performance of promises”. 205 206

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Legislator from the stage. This is the path of the “rule of law”. And it is the path followed by Mandeville, Hume and Smith. The economic problem can now be addressed by means of the free interaction of citizens placed on the same footing before the law. This is the terrain within which the exercise of autonomous decision-making on the part of agents is structured. And it is an area over which public authorities no longer have any competence. Their sphere of intervention is restricted and relegated to a role which is exclusively complementary, and which itself is subject to compliance with the law.209 Public power must most of all prevent anyone from causing damage to the Other,210 so that the free mobilisation of resources and knowledge is not impaired. As we have already flagged, the idea of justice is expressed in negative terms: it does not specify what is “right”, but what is “wrong”. Smith emphasised this very acutely: “Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbour. The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing”.211 In other words, individual freedom of choice has as its only limit what is unjust. In fact, how can one mobilise material resources and knowledge without the affirmation of individual freedom? Scarcity and ignorance require the free mobilisation of what is available. They therefore need

209  For Mandeville, Hume and Smith, all this is a turning point. “For unhappy is the people, and their Constitution will be very precarious, whose welfare must depend upon virtues and consciences of Ministers and Politicians” (Mandeville 1924, vol. 1, p. 190). And this is the reason why “political writers have established it as a maxim that, in contriving any system of government, and fixing the several checks and controls of the constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave, and to have other end, in all his action, than private interest” (Hume 1903, p. 40). Smith (1976b, vol. 1, p. 468) himself opposed the “rule of law” to the activity of “that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs”. 210  Smith (1976a), p. 218. 211  Smith (1976a), p. 82, cf. also p. 218. Millar (1803, vol. 4, p. 267) himself wrote: “justice requires no more than that I should abstain from hurting my neighbour, in his person, his property, or his reputation”. Millar then added: “the line of duty suggested by this mere negative virtue, can be clearly marked, and its boundaries distinctly ascertained”.

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freedom. And this is made possible by a specific habitat, the one established by the general and abstract rules of law. It is the “rule of law”, which coincides with the idea of the utility of rules. This means that the identification and solution of problems is entrusted to a social process which remains always unfinished and which cannot be tampered with. Hume had no hesitation in stating that a “single act of justice is frequently contrary to public interest; and were it to stand alone, without being followed by other acts, may, in itself, be very prejudicial to society”.212 In other words, intervening in the social process in violation of the rules in order to perform a single act of justice is absolutely not advantageous. This leads back to the idea of the utility of acts, which is the basic criterion around which the “rule of men” takes shape. Dugald Stewart, one of the last proponents of the Whig doctrine, acutely identified a number of significant consequences produced by resorting to this principle: “The frequent appeal to utility as the standard of action tends to introduce an uncertainty with respect to the conduct of other men”, since an action to which a lesser utility is attributed is continuously replaced by others which are assigned a greater benefit.213 And this undermines the very process of social interaction, which loses its reliability.214 The utility of actions allows “exceptions to the most important rules”; it is too benevolent, whenever the end pursued has some attraction, in punishing the “use of doubtful means”; and authorises “too great a latitude for discretion” and political power, which is thus elevated to the rank of independent variable in social life.215 One can explore this in greater depth. Only if one thinks that “the chief characteristic of the command hierarchy is not knowledge but ignorance”216 does it become clear that the attempt to expand the extent and/or effectiveness of public power can only lead to a proliferation of mistakes. When voluntary cooperation is replaced by prescriptive cooperation, utility of actions prevails over the solutions produced by the social process and its 212  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 201. Meinecke (1936, vol. 1, p. 234) appropriately stressed that for Hume the “the sense English history” is to be seen in the “passage from a government of men to a government of laws”. Hayek (1967, p. 109) wrote that Hume “gives us probably the only comprehensive statement of the legal and political philosophy which later became known as liberalism”. 213  Stewart (1859), p. 184. 214  Ibid. 215  Ibid. 216  See note 157 in this chapter.

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error-correcting mechanism is damaged or even demolished.217 The interests which prevail are those favoured by public powers. In this way, immediate or short-term outcomes are privileged and, from a strictly economic point of view, there occurs a destruction of resources and a decline in productivity. If on the other hand the utility of rules prevails, voluntary cooperation is generalised, the function of public power is placed in a complementary position and the method of “conjectures” and “confutations” becomes prominent. The procedure that emerges is one which disregards individual preferences, is based on the general and abstract norms which make it possible (and which are the true “common good”) and it shows its fruitfulness in permanent competition and checking of selected solutions. It is an ateleological process, which promotes medium- and long-term outcomes.218 In referring to Montesquieu, Burke and Savigny, Sir Frederick Pollock defined them as “Darwinians before Darwin”.219 But this would apply more accurately to Mandeville, Hume and Smith, who did not believe in any “natural identity of interests”.220 They understood that it is possible to respond adequately to scarcity through the voluntary mobilisation of material resources and knowledge scattered inside society. And they identified the instrument through which the mediation of interests could be made possible: the general and abstract rules of law, which have precisely the goal of ensuring that individual actions co-adapt. It is in this way that social cooperation is extended and intensified. Individual freedom of choice is affirmed and the intervention of public power is restricted. Accordingly, the generalised mobilisation of resources and knowledge extends the scope of possibilities and selects models of life which are better adapted to individual preferences, increasingly advantageous productive 217  Hume (1930, vol. 2, p. 191–2) wrote that, when decisions are entrusted to a single person or to a restricted group, the “least failure” must be “attended with inevitable ruin and misery”; and he added that, when instead there is “mutual support, we are less exposed to fortune and accidents” and that it is “by this additional force, ability, and security, that society becomes advantageous”. Ferguson (1792, vol. 2, p. 510) himself argued: “wherever men are free to think and to act, errors will be incurred, and wrongs will be committed: but the error that results from the freedom of one person is best corrected by the concurring freedom of many”. 218  Hayek (1949), pp. 19–22. 219  F. Pollock (1908), p. 42. 220  See Hayek (1967, p. 103, note 21; 1978, cit., p. 265; 1982, vol. 1), pp. 23–4.

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processes and rules which facilitate social exchange. Obviously, this does not do away with the fact that actors benefit from differing degrees of freedom. And yet, they are on the same footing with regard to the law and the process in which they are involved does not give any individual subject the power to impose their will and/or to “make their views and interests always prevail over those of all other”.221 The results achieved by “sceptical Whiggism” were taken up by classical English liberalism, which was criticised from two opposite directions.222 There are those who judge it an illusion to believe it is possible to limit the sphere of intervention of public power and believe it possible to extend voluntary cooperation to every area of collective life. And there are those who instead believe that liberalism is blind to the political variable and that this blindness fosters the attempt to create a “depoliticalized society”.223 We shall now address these two kinds of criticism.

3.8   Limitation or Extinction of Public Power? As Mandeville, Hume and Smith are considered to be “Darwinians before Darwin”, there is no reason to look for a beginning of society in their work. Man is a social being a nativitate. It is no longer possible to postulate the state of the nature or any original contract. Mandeville stated that “it is hard to guess what man would be entirely untaught”.224 Hume wrote that the state of nature is a “mere fiction, not unlike that of the golden age which poets have invented”.225 Smith argued that, without a relationship with the Other, no one could “think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his own sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity

 Hayek (1949), p. 13.  Strauss (1959, p. 49) saw in liberalism the “solution of the political problem by economic means”. On the contrary, the lesson of Mandeville, Hume and Smith shows that liberalism is the solution to the economic problem through social cooperation and the limitation of the action of public power. In his judgement, Strauss was to a large extent led astray by his failure to recognise the condition of scarcity as the root of the problem of order, namely of compatibility of individual actions. This is confirmed by the fact that he did not see economic activity as a product of scarcity, but rather as the outcome of the “acquisitiveness” (ibid.). His approach is thus essentially psychologistic. On Strauss, see Cubeddu (2010). 223  Schmitt (1996), p. 57. 224  Mandeville (1924), vol. 2, p. 189. 225  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 198. 221 222

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of his own mind, than of the beauty or deformity of his own face”.226 In support of this, one may add that Ferguson asserted that the “material, on which the political genius of men is to work, is not, as poets have figured, a scattered race, in a state of individuality to be collected together into troops, by the charms of music or the lessons of philosophy [… is] a troop of men by mere instinct assembled together”.227 And this is not all. Precisely because they were “Darwinians before Darwin”, Mandeville, Hume, Smith and the other minor Scottish moralists were “very far from holding such naïve views” like the “natural goodness of man” or the already mentioned notion of “natural harmony of interests”.228 They never overlooked the fact that the condition of scarcity induces cooperation and conflict at the same time. And, as already indicated, they found in law the keystone of their conception of social order.229 Therefore, it is not “natural liberty”, in a literal sense of the term, which allows voluntary cooperation, but the normative habitat, the rules which mark out the boundaries between actions and which make freedom of choice possible.230 Can such an understanding of collective life do without the presence of public power? Hume wrote: “Throw any considerable goods among men, they instantly fall a quarrelling, while each strives to get possession of what  Smith (1976a), p. 110.  Ferguson (1792), vol. 1, p. 262. 228  Hayek (1960), p. 60. 229  Smith actually wanted to write a work on the philosophy of law (Smith 1976a, p. 342). And yet, seeing that his old age prevented him from completing the project, he stated that his main ideas on the subject are to be found in The Wealth of Nations (op. cit., p. 3), in which work, as we already know, Smith derived from law individual freedom of choice, mobilisation of knowledge and economic growth. This is a good opportunity to add that Smith also provided an extremely appropriate explanation of the origins of capitalism. Cities, which were the places where the certainty of law was first established, became “the only sanctuaries in which it could be secure to the person that acquired it” (Smith 1976b, vol. 1, p.  405). According to Smith, this all had as its necessary condition “feudal anarchy”, the lack, that is, of a strong central political power (op. cit., p. 386). Therefore, market society was originated unintentionally, without prior planning (op. cit., p.  418). Smith’s idea was taken up by Ferguson (1792, vol. 1, p. 314): “the Barons of England […] knew not that the charters which they extorted from their sovereign, were to become foundations of freedom to the people over whom they themselves wished to tyrannize”. The same thesis was later developed by Millar (1803), vol. 2, pp. 80–81. For a more specific analysis of the three authors, see Infantino (2004), pp. 94–8. For a more recent use of “feudal anarchy” as a pre-condition for the birth of capitalism, cf. Baechler (1971), Pellicani (1988). 230  Hayek (1960), p. 60. 226 227

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pleases him, without regard to the consequences”.231 Hence his conclusion: “it is impossible they should maintain a society of any kind without justice, and the observance of those three fundamental laws concerning the stability of possession, its translation by consent, and the performance of promises”.232 Accordingly, (voluntary) social cooperation needs such laws; and it needs them to be respected. It is necessary that the law not be broken and that, in any case, those responsible be punished. How can this be done? Here too it is necessary to have some available instrument. The problem is “to maintain peace and execute justice”.233 And this is the function of public power: to produce the security without which the free implementation of cooperation becomes impossible. “Liberty is the perfection of civil society; but still authority must be acknowledged essential to its very existence”.234 In other words, even though the condition of human ignorance and fallibility dispenses rulers from the duty of “superintending the industry of private people”,235 one cannot do without public power. Scarcity undermines the human ability of self-limitation, that is of recognising the boundaries between one’s own action and that of others. And it is this inadequacy which keeps public power standing, although it is an “imperfect remedy”236: because it can be a victim of the insufficiency which generates it, of the inability which we all share to recognise and accept the limits beyond which our action must not go. In the same way as for any other actor, the degrees of freedom of public power must therefore be circumscribed. None of the roles in collective life can be removed from the “rule of law”.237 This means that the limitation of the area of prescriptive action is always imposed by the necessity to remove social actors from the abuses of rulers. Gnoseological, economic and social reasons justify this limitation. And this is made possible by law. Coercion is not entirely eliminated because it is necessary “to maintain peace and execute justice”. It may be “reduced to  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 240.  Op. cit., p. 241–2. These same ideas were expressed by Smith (1976b), vol. 2, p. 910. 233  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 242. 234  Hume (1903), p. 39. 235  Smith (1976b), vol. 2, p. 687. 236  Smith (1976a), p. 187. 237  Another great exponent of the Whig tradition, Edmund Burke (1791, p. 97), wrote: “It is not necessary to teach men to thirst after power. But it is very expedient that, by moral instruction, they should be taught, and by their civil constitution they should be compelled, to put many restrictions upon the immoderate exercise of it, and the inordinate desire”. 231 232

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that minimum which is necessary to prevent” anyone, including rulers, from “arbitrarily coercing others”.238 Which is tantamount to saying that, only if one accepts the “rule of law”, can democracy and liberalism walk together. Influenced by the Scottish moralists, Constant wrote that “the abstract recognition of the sovereignty of the people does not in the least increase the amount of liberty given to individuals”.239 For, “if we attribute to that sovereignty an amplitude which must not have, liberty may be lost notwithstanding that principle, or even through it”.240 Released from the “rule of law”, democracy exclusively answers the “old question: ‘Who shall exercise public power?’ And the answer is: ‘the exercise of public power is up to the citizens collectively’. This means that [in this way] democratic power does not concern itself with what the sphere of competence of that power should be”.241 This is why Aristotle had already assigned his preference to a democracy limited by the “authority of the law”.242 Mandeville, Hume and Smith made law the instrument for social conflict regulation and limitation of the sphere of intervention of public power. It derives from their theory that “fundamental rights” or “human rights” are not generated from “natural liberties”, but are the product of those general and abstract norms which give life to the “rule of law”.243 It follows that the separation of powers is generated by the existence of those same norms. Because it is only if the legislative body enacts laws which have the properties of generality and abstractness that “courts could […] order (and the executive […] apply) coercion in order to secure obedience to such general rules”.244 If however the “legislature [… can] give to the executive any order […] and if any action of the executive authorized in this manner [… is] regarded as legitimate”, the separation of powers ceases

 Hayek (1978), p. 133.  Constant (1988a), p. 175. 240  Ibid. 241  Ortega y Gasset (1926, pp.  424–425; 1930, pp.  191–192). In times closer to ours, Popper (1966, vol. 1, p.  174) argued that the old question of “who should command?” should be replaced by the new question: “How can we organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?” 242  See Chap. 1, note 187. 243  Hayek (1978), p. 138. Burke (1951, p. 112) explained that, without the “rule of law”, the “rights of men” become a “grand magazine”, in which one can hoard the “effectual instrument of despotism”. See also op. cit., pp. 125–6. 244  Hayek (1978), pp. 137–8. 238 239

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to exist: because the legislative assembly becomes the “supreme governmental authority which directs the action of the executive” and which prevents individual freedom being limited solely by general and abstract norms.245 Obviously, the idea of individual and collective life which emerges from the works of Mandeville, Hume and Smith leaves no room for any form of anarchism.246 Neither can it be equated or assimilated with the French tradition of laissez-faire, which is based on irredeemable jusnaturalism.247 Riding on the momentum of Smithian evolutionism, most economists who came immediately after were well aware of the fact that “individual efforts” are channelled “to socially beneficial aims” not by “some sort of magic”, but by rules and institutions which succeed by means of the continual screening of competition.248 This allows man to “use his intelligence to the best effect” and prevents harm being caused to others or ensures that those who are less open to cooperation cause as little harm as  Op. cit. p. 138.  Op. cit., p. 133. Mises (1981a, pp. 45–6, b, c) wrote: “People often fail to perceive the fundamental differences between the liberal and the anarchist idea. Anarchism rejects all coercive social organizations, and repudiates coercion as a social technique. It wishes in fact to abolish the State and the legal order, because it believes that society could do better without them. It does not fear anarchical disorder because it believes that without compulsion would unite for social co-operation and would behave in the manner that social life demands”. Mises 1978a, p. 71) also wrote: “Liberalism differs radically from anarchism and has nothing in common with the improbable ideas of the anarchists”. 247  Taylor (1967), pp.  78–99. Viner (1960, pp.  99), who was one of the most widely accepted interpreters of Mandeville, believed that the position of the author of The Fable of the Bees could be considered the same as that of laissez-faire. In the light of what we know today, this thesis is indefensible. Mandeville’s evolutionism is in stark opposition to jusnaturalism. It is true: Mandeville’s exaltation of “private vices” needs to be trimmed of the excesses of his rhetoric. But one should not forget that Mandeville (1924, vol. 1, p.  37) wrote that “vice is beneficial” only when it is “by justice lopt and bound”. He also specified (op. cit., vol. 2, p. 335) that, for securing and perpetuating “to nations their establishment, and whatever they value there is no better method than with wise laws to guard and entrench their Constitution, and contrive such forms of administration that the common-weal can receive no great detriment from the want of knowledge or probity”. We are very far from the laissez faire theories which, when imported into Britain, led Bentham (1840, p. 66) to say that “every law is an evil for every law is an infraction of liberty”. 248  Hayek (1960), p. 60. Hayek (1982, vol. 1, p. 44) also wrote: “society can thus exist only if by a process of selection rules have evolved which lead individuals to behave in a manner which make social life possible”. 245 246

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possible.249 The theory of laissez-faire is instead based on the “assumption of the individual man’s propensity for rational action and his natural intelligence and goodness”.250 Taken to its logical conclusions, this doctrine opens the gates to anarchy, to the idea that one can and should do without public power.251 This is the goal of American anarchist liberalism, which not coincidentally is weighed down by the considerable burden of the “natural identity of interests”, which ensues from a rigid application of a part of Locke’s heritage.252 As we have already highlighted in this chapter (Sect. 3.3), in the condition “of equality, wherein all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal”, the political dimension vanishes and there is no need for the original contract and public power (and, obviously, any limitation on the sphere of intervention of the latter). In Cato’s Letters, which can be considered to be the link between Locke and American libertarianism,253 one reads: “all men are born free; liberty is a gift which they receive from God himself”; they cannot “alienate” it “by consent”.254 It follows that no man can consider his freedom to be disposable, nor can he consider disposable that of his  Hayek (1960), p. 61.  Ibid. 251  It may be useful at this point to quote a brief passage from Robbins (1965, p. 57): “It is necessary to emphasize […] the contrast between the Classical and other libertarian systems  - the anarchical system which assumes no need for law and order at all and the naturrechtlick systems which indeed assume the necessity for some such apparatus, but assume it to be so simple that it can be deduced from revelation or the principles of pure reason and written on half a sheet of notepaper”. One can only object to Robbins that not all classical economists were evolutionists, so that the expression “classical economics”, as the later “neo-classical economics”, encompasses two distinct cultural approaches: one of which is evolutionist and the other rationalist. See extensively Infantino (2010, pp. 159–177). With reference to the common classifications in Italy, one might say that the term “liberismo” was introduced to refer to laissez-faire. And yet it is right to point out that some Italian authors, even though in general they were followed classical liberalism, did not hesitate to call themselves “liberisti”, wishing with this only to indicate that they were in favour of free trade. This is perfectly correct (cf. also Cubeddu 1997, pp. 113–124). It is not however correct to believe that there can be liberalism without economic freedom, i.e. without private property. This was the very serious mistake which Croce made: see Infantino (2003b, pp. 93–96). 252  Cubeddu (1997), p. 103. 253  Lottieri (2001), p. 37. 254  Jacobson (1965), p. 108. Cato’s Letters, which came out in England between November 1720 and July 1723, were written by Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard. The output of 249 250

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posterity, “who will born as free as himself was born, and can never be bound by his wicked and ridiculous bargain”.255 Cato’s Letters present a position which during the eighteenth century was broadly superseded by “sceptical Whiggism”. They were used by the American proponents of independence to promote their claims.256 But the use the American colonists made of them does not confer a superior gnoseological status upon those letters. And from the ethical postulates they contain, as is the case for any other ethical prescription, no expansion of our knowledge can be derived. These postulates have to a varying degree influenced American anarchism,257 which differed from European anarchism, first in its rejection of any form of violence, but which never relinquished the idea of releasing itself from the presence of public power.258 Underlying this aspiration, there is always the refusal to recognise the political dimension of human action, which in turn derives from the refusal to recognise the differing degrees of freedom which actors involved in voluntary cooperation benefit from. In other words, the representatives of anarchism “black out” the political dimension of exchange; they erase social conflict or depict it as minimal; they deny the need for public power or consider that the “production of security” can be structured in competitive terms. It is a position which in Europe was supported, among others, by Gustave de Molinari259; in the American tradition, it can be also discerned in the writing of Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker.260 This is the approach embraced by Murray N. Rothbard, who in the second half of the twentieth century was the leading exponent of American anarcho-capitalism. There should, in these two authors was made use of by the American proponents of independence, in the period preceding the revolution of 1776. 255  Jacobson (1965), p. 108. 256  And yet, speaking from an evolutionary position, Smith (1976d, pp. 377–385) never hesitated in defending the rights of the colonies. 257  For a collection of some significant texts of the American theorists of anarchism, the reader is referred to Iannello (2004). 258  Lottieri (2001), p. 42. See also Holcombe (2004), pp. 325–342. The anarchist position was criticised by Olson (2000, p. 55) in the following terms: “Anarchy not only involves loss of human life but also increases the incentives to steal and to defend against theft, and thereby reduces the incentive to produce”. 259  Molinari (1849, pp. 128–41; 2009pp. 15–61). 260  See Iannello (2004), p. 52.

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this view, be a market, in which competing companies offer “protection” services. Without going into the details of the matter, one should point out that Rothbard himself understood the possibility of policemen becoming “outlaws”.261 Which means that the various “protection” enterprises might turn into criminal gangs. It is a bit like what happens in places where the weakness of public power leaves citizens at the mercy of criminal organisations, which are also “protection agencies”. But Rothbard was unable to come up with any answer to this problem.262

3.9   De-politicisation or Conflict Regulation? We have seen how much attention Mandeville, Hume and Smith (and the minor Scottish moralists) paid to the problem of limiting public power. On the basis of gnoseological reasoning, they toppled the myth of the Great Legislator. And through law they marked out the boundaries between the action of the ruled and the boundaries between the actions of rulers and ruled. Both are necessary to regulate conflict, which derives from the condition of scarcity. The fact that conflict is “regulated” rather than “suppressed” does not mean that Mandeville, Hume and Smith “depoliticized” collective life. The political dimension is clearly “readable”. But it stands in a different garb compared with the one donned in a situation of conflict repression. These authors formulated a fully-fledged theory of the Great Society, within which they explained that exchange allows all contracting parties to improve their positions: because the advantages achieved by one side are not damage suffered by the other. Obviously, this does not dispel conflict.  Rothbard (1996b), p. 221.  Rothbard bound himself to rigid jusnaturalism. And he had no hesitation in stating (1998, p. 148) that his position “toss out of court all variants of ‘social contract’ as a justification for the State […], whether it be the Hobbesian surrender of all one’s rights, [or] the Lockean surrender of the right of self-defence”. This is why Bassani (1996, p. XXXV) wrote that Rothbard’s is a “theory of natural rights in opposition to political society”. Rothbard used the evolutionistically inspired theory of the Austrian School of Economics in the field of economics. But his political philosophy is hyper-rationalist, so much so that he was a severe critic of the theory of unintended consequences and understood order as voluntarily constructed. In the theory of Mandeville, Hume and Smith, actors intentionally exchange means; and they cooperate unintentionally in the pursuit of their respective ends. For a criticism of Rothbard from an evolutionary point of view, see Fallocco (2011). 261 262

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And yet, thanks to the “rule of law”, it is absorbed into a framework of peaceful cooperation. As we know, Carl Schmitt wrote that “the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy”.263 He added that “war is neither the aim nor the purpose nor the very content of politics. But as ever present possibility, it is the leading presumption which determines in a characteristic way human action and thinking, and thereby creates a specific political behavior”.264 To Schmitt liberalism appeared as “an ideal social construction” which, “in one of its typical dilemmas […] of intellect and economic, has attempted to transform the enemy, from the view point of economics, into a competitor and, from the intellectual point, into a debating adversary”.265 This is the “depoliticisation” of life. The first thing one can object to Schmitt, and to all those who share his positions, is something which was already mentioned in previous chapters and has been also re-stated in the current one; namely, if interaction were always a zero-sum game, free cooperation and society itself would not be possible. As a result, even those who give their preference to the coercive solution must to some extent allow room for the idea of cooperation as a positive-sum game. This means that, from Schmitt’s own point of view, the friend-and-enemy relationship is actually a friendsand-enemies relationship. This prompts a legitimate question: if the cooperative principle is valid in a restricted environment, why deny the possibility of extending its application universally? As soon as one accepts the idea that the game can be a positive-sum one for some, it is a foregone conclusion to extend voluntary cooperation as far as possible and to see in the Other a competitor and not an enemy.266 To oppose such an extension would be completely inconsistent. In his hostility to the social and competitive solution of the economic problem, Schmitt started out from a false premise: namely, that the intersubjective relationship is a zero-sum one. And this led him to the  Schmitt (1996), p. 26, italics added.  Op. cit., p. 34. 265  Op. cit., p. 28. 266  Schmitt (op. cit., p. 55) equates “liberalism” with the “natural law and liberal-individualistic doctrines”. This is undoubtedly too generic as a statement; and in any case it prevents a more in-depth discussion. 263 264

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friend-­enemy logic. But he avoided declining this logic in the plural. And this allowed him to evade the obligation of explaining why cooperation, which is to some extent possible among “friends” (the pure, the select, the heroes), becomes impossible with others. Conjugated in the singular, the friend-enemy principle “protects” his false premise, that is to say the idea of interaction as a zero-sum game, for it conceals a territory in which cooperation must be necessarily practiced and which therefore stands as a model to be made universal. In general terms, the words of Voltaire apply: “war is a resource in extreme cases: one must make use of it only in desperate cases, and thoroughly examine whether one is impelled by a haughty illusion or by a valid reason”.267 And, in specific reference to Schmitt’s thesis, one can resort to Johan Huizinga’s comment: “I know of no sadder and deeper fall from human reason than Schmitt’s barbarous and pathetic delusion about the friend-foe principle. His inhuman cerebrations do not even hold water as a piece of formal logic. For it is not war that is serious, but peace […]. Only by transcending the pitiable friend-foe relationship will mankind enter into the dignity of man’s estate. Schmitt’s brand of ‘seriousness’ merely takes us back to the savage level”.268 And this is not all. The fact that classical liberalism entrusted law with the task of marking out the boundaries between actions, that is marking out the degrees of freedom between parties, has also led some people to say that in this way “political philosophy is a branch of the philosophy of law”.269 But here, while it is clear that problems always transcend the barriers between disciplines, one should understand that the intervention of law is a consequence of the political dimension of the action, a dimension which is in no way erased. All law does is to prevent falling back into the “rule of men”, which is nothing else than the centralisation of every

 Voltaire (1741), p. 61.  Huizinga (1949), p. 209. Panebianco (2004, p. 9) wrote that “Schmitt’s theories were exaggerated and biased”. And he added that liberal thinkers “have always correctly seen in politics a possible threat to freedom. But the causes of this – in part (but only in part) for the reasons indicated by Carl Schmitt  – mostly remain obscure and unexplored in liberal thought”. The positions expressed in this book look in a completely different direction. 269  This was done by Gray (2004, p. 14), who levels this accusation against thinkers of very different persuasion, such as Rawls, Dworkin, Hayek and Nozick. 267 268

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decision on the part of public power. Elective action prevails. We offer goods and services to others; and we ask others to do something for us. The needs to be satisfied (the economic element), the cooperation through which we try to respond to our insufficiencies (the social element), the differing degrees of freedom each enjoys (the political dimension), all of this is permanently channelled in the law. And, finally, because of the fact that voluntary cooperation can only occur if the boundaries between actions are defined, this leads to the transformation of the differing degrees of freedom into legal claims.270 It follows that, under the “rule of law”, power and law live together. In other words, in order to be exercised, power must don the robe of law. Whether it is generated by the relationship between the contracting parties or by the relationship between ruled and rulers, conflict thus finds itself “regulated” in legal norms. And the political dimension becomes almost invisible. For it is covered by the normative garb, beneath which there lie the differing degrees of freedom of actors. As a consequence of their choices, each improves or worsens their position within cooperation and the connected structure of power. What is at first sight apparent is the legal relationship. And yet, since individual choices are part of a professional or even existential project, each individual exchange is only a part of a larger attempt to show that what is offered is better, more convenient and therefore scarce. In this way, a dynamic is fuelled which leads to a continual fluctuation in the relative positions of actors, that is the degrees of freedom each one enjoys. It remains to be added that when the usual normative garb becomes incapable of containing conflict, the situation shows its face in full and causes pressure to be applied in order that the old garb be “updated” or replaced by a new one. These are moments when the relationship between power and the law become most visible. The harshness of the conflict depends on the scale of the interests at stake and the prevalent type of culture which exists. Tocqueville rightly called attention to the fact that

270  I am borrowing the term “claim” from Leoni, who planned to develop a theory of power on individualistic bases. He was not aware of Simmel’s work. He intended to refer mostly to Hume. As we know, Leoni did not have time to complete his project. Indications of what he wanted to write can be found in his lectures to his students. See in particular Leoni (2003, p. 78), where, among other things, it is stated that the “idea of power” is at the “root of the idea of [legal] claim”, so that the “field of law” cannot “be separated from the field of power”.

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conflict may concern problems which do not challenge social cooperation. This is what normally happens in an open society, the life of which is permanently characterised by debate. And this is the type of contest which Tocqueville noted in the United States. Conflict may however assail the very principles of social intercourse, in which case the opposing sides do not aim solely at a new definition of the boundaries between the interests involved; they aim at a radical change in the actual rules of the game. This is the kind of contest to which Tocqueville attributed the dramatic instability of France.271 And it is a conflict which seeks a complete overturning of the distribution of power.

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Ortega y Gasset J. (1948) “Prospecto del Instituto de humanidades”, in Ortega y Gasset (1946–1983), vol. 7. Ortega y Gasset J. (1957) “El hombre y la gente”, in Ortega y Gasset (1946–1983), vol. 7. Ortega y Gasset J. (1958) “La idea de principio en Leibniz”, in Ortega y Gasset (1946–1983), vol. 8. Ortega y Gasset J. (1960a) “Una interpretación de la historia universal”, in Ortega (1946–1983), vol. 9. Ortega y Gasset J. (1960b) “Origen y epílogo de la filosofía”, Ortega (1946–1983), vol. 9. Paganini G. (1980, Analisi della fede e critica della ragione nella filosofia di Pierre Bayle, Firenze: La Nuova Italia. Panebianco A. (2004) Il potere, lo stato, la libertà, Bologna: Il Mulino. Parsons T. (1949) The Structure of Social Action, Glencoe: Free Press. Passerin d’Entrèves A. (1940), “La fortuna di Marsilio da Padova in Inghilterra”, in Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia, vol. 2, pp. 135–52. Passerin d’Entrèves A. (1980) La dottrina del diritto naturale, Milano: Comunità. Pellicani L. (1988) Saggio sulla genesi del capitalismo, Milano: SugarCo. Pocock J.G.A. (1985) Virtue, Commerce and History, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P. Polanyi K. (1971) “Aristotele discovers the Economy”, in Polanyi (ed.), Trade and Markets in the Early Empires, Chicago: Gateway/Henry Regnery. Polanyi K. (1977) The Livelihood of Man, New York: Academic Press. Pollock F. (1908) Oxford Lectures and Other Essays, London: Macmillan. Pollock F. (1912) The Genius of Common Law, New York: Columbia U.P. Pollock F. (1922) Essays in the Law, London: Macmillan. Popper K.R. (1966) The Open Society and Its Enemies, London: Routledge. Popper K.R. (1991) Conjectures and Refutations, London: Routledge. Popper K.R. (1992) The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London: Routledge. Rawson E. (1969) The Spartan Tradition in European Thought, Oxford: Oxford U.P. Ricardo D. (2001) On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Kitchener: Batoche Books. Robbins L. (1965) The Theory of Economic Policy in the English Classical Political Economy, London: Macmillan. Rothbard M.N. (1996a) An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Cheltenham: Elgar. Rothbard M.N. (1996b) For a New Liberty, San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes. Rothbard M.N. (1998) The Ethics of Liberty, New York: New York U.P. Rousseau J.-J. (1997a) “Discourse on the Science and Arts”, in Rousseau (1970c). Rousseau J.-J. (1997b) “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men”, in Rousseau (1997c). Russell B. (1947) Philosophy and Politics, Cambridge: National Book League.

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Sabine G.H. (1961) A History of Political Theory, New  York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Savigny F. von (1840) System des heutigen Römischen Rechts, vol. 1, Berlin: Veit. Schiavone G. (2004) “La figura di James Harrington: scienza politica e utopia”, introduzione to Harrington, La Repubblica di Oceana, Torino: Utet. Schmitt C. (1996) The Concept of the Political, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schumpeter J.A. (1997) History of Economic Analysis, London: Routledge. Scribano M.E. (1980) Natura umana e società competitiva. Studio su Mandeville, Milano: Feltrinelli. Simmel G. (1908) Soziologie, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. Smith A. (1976a) “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, in Smith (1976e). Smith A. (1976b) “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, in Smith (1976e). Smith A. (1976c) “Lectures on Jurisprudence”, in Smith (1976e). Smith A. (1976d) “Correspondence of Adam Smith”, in Smith (1976e). Sombart W. (1923), “Die Anfänge der Soziologie”, in Hautprobleme der Soziologie: Erinnerungsgabe für Max Weber, München/Leipzig: Duncker und Humbolt. Sombart W. (1937) A New Social Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton U.P. Sternberger D. (1978) Drei Wurzeln der Politik, Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag. Stewart D. (1859) The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man, Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. Strauss L. (1959) What is Political Philosophy? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Strauss L. (1965) Natural Right and History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Swift J. (2004) An Argument against Abolishing Christianity, Adelaide: eBooks. Taylor O.H. (1967) Economics and Liberalism, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard U.P. Tocqueville A. de (1994) Democracy in America, London: Everyman’s Library. Tucker J. (1931) “The Elements of Commerce and Theory of Taxes”, in R.L.  Schyler (ed.), Josiah Tucker, a Selection from his Economic and Political Writings, New York: Columbia U.P. Vatiero M. (2015) “Dominant Market Position and Ordoliberalism”, in International Review of Economics, vol. 62, pp. 291–306. Viner J. (1960) Studies in the Theory of International Trade, London: Bradford & Dickens. Voltaire (1741, Anti-Machiavel, Amsterdam: La Caze. Voltaire (1876) Dictionnaire philosophique, in Oeuvres completes, vol. 18, Paris: Hachette. Weber M. (1946) Essays in Sociology, New York: Oxford U.P. Weber M. (1949) The Methodology of Social Sciences, Glencoe: Free Press. Weber M. (1978) Economy and Society, New York: Bedminster Press. Wolin S.S. (2006) Politics and Vision, Princeton: Princeton U.P.

CHAPTER 4

Pareto and Machiavellianism: The Problem and the Errors

4.1   Pareto’s Problem The foregoing discussion allows us to understand that the “rule of law” is the instrument by which we defend ourselves from the utility of actions and Machiavellianism. We shall now focus on the ways in which Machiavellianism “assaults” the rule of law and even presents itself as a solution to the problems it itself creates. To analyse this issue, we shall examine the work of Vilfredo Pareto, a thinker it is not easy to “decipher”. Even Julien Freund, a sympathetic commentator, admitted that on his first contact with the Trattato di sociologia generale he had “the unpleasant feeling of going round in circles, finding the same problems over and over again, only presented with different examples without experiencing the intellectual joy of making headway in his reasoning”.1 Raymond Aron remarked the irritation often caused by Pareto’s judgements, which are “weighed down by passion” and which do not comply with the “constantly proclaimed intention of being scientifically objective and neutral”.2 In addition, before he came to a lenient reading, Aron himself had accused Pareto of “having provided an ideology or a justification of Fascism”.3 And Georges Gurvitch went as far as to write that Pareto’s work “seems to present one single advantage: furnishing an example of what not to do”.4  Freund (1974), p. 6.  Aron (1967), p. 471. 3  Ibid., p. 475. 4  Gurvitch (1957), p. 78. 1 2

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As if to say that Pareto failed the targets he had set himself. And this was certainly not beneficial for him. And yet his failure can be useful to us, because it outlines an itinerary we should refrain from embarking upon. Therefore, one must overcome what Pareto set against his readers (and at the same time himself). In this way it is possible to recover the problem which the Trattato di sociologia took its moves from. And this makes it possible in turn to show the reasons for the inadequacy of the responses Pareto intended to use to address the phenomena which he examined. Pareto’s theory is mostly one of political power in the narrower sense of the term.5 Pareto felt the events of Italian (and French) politics dramatically. And what most disgusted him was corruption. In a letter dated 9 January 1894, he wrote: “This is the condition of our homeland now: every liberty has been extinguished apart from that of theft on the part of self-serving politicians and everything is undertaken to extinguish in the minds of the people every upright and honest”.6 In other words, Pareto remarked on the existing dissociation between the “nobility” of the formulas with which the rulers justified their power and the “baseness” of the interests their actions actually pursued. This was his problem, certainly not something new in the history of mankind. And it is an issue which is not alien to the birth of the earliest social science. Anyone who has read Mandeville, Hume or Smith knows this, and it is useful to recall some of their statements on the matter, because of the much greater depth in which they discussed it. The first of those authors had no hesitation in writing: “If you ask me where to look for those beautiful shining qualities of prime ministers, and the great favourites of princes that are so finely painted in dedications, address, epitaphs, funeral sermons and inscription, I would answer there, and no where else […]. This has often made me compare the virtues of great men to your large China jars: they make a fine shew, and they are ornamental even to a chimney; one would by the bulk they appear in, and the value that is set upon ‘em, think they might be very useful, but look into a thousand of them, and you’ll find nothing in them but dust and  Schumpeter (1949), p. 168, Aron (1967), pp. 414–5.  Letter quoted by Busino (1974), p. 21. In this connection, Bobbio (1971, pp. 54–55) wrote: “As far as social morphology is concerned, Pareto takes no notice of it, because the only kind of society he has in mind is political society, characterized by the relations between rulers and ruled, so that he has much more the appearance of a successor to Machiavelli than a contemporary of Durkheim”. And not just Durkheim. 5 6

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cobwebs”.7 Hume had argued: “those whom we choose for rulers do not immediately become of a superior nature to the rest of mankind, upon account of their superior power and authority. […] we may often expect […] that they will […] be transported by their passions into all the excesses of cruelty and ambition”.8 And Smith had not turned a blind eye to the “skill of that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs” and not by principles.9 Consequently, as we saw in the previous chapter, all three directed their examination to researching the conditions that make the degenerative phenomena in social life, which are ascribable to the action of rulers, possible or impossible. Hume’s suggestion also holds for the other two: “Political writers have established it as a maxim, that, in contriving any system of government, and fixing the several checks and controls of the constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave and to have no other end, in all his actions, than private interest. By this interest we must govern him, and by means of it, make him, notwithstanding his insatiable avarice and ambition, co-operate to public good”.10 This is the evolutionist tradition, about which we also have said in the previous chapter, that it focused on the “utility of rules” since the interest of those authors is not “what man” may “occasionally achieve when he” is “at his best but that he should have as little opportunity as possible to do harm when he” is “at his worst”.11 It is the tradition which has done most to answer the question of the limitation and control of public power. To corruption and the damage caused by protectionism, Pareto opposed the need for a free trade policy. This is an unexceptionable position: because free trade uproots the connivance between economy and political power and prevents protected activities from subtracting resources from the most efficient initiatives. In this way the conditions which make the involutional phenomena produced by protectionism possible cease to exist. The result is ascribable to the “rule of law” and the consequent limitation of the opportunity for public power to intervene. 7  See note 153 in the previous chapter. As we know, Mandeville was influenced by Bayle. Pareto (1935, in particular vol. 1, pp. 226–230, sections 360–366) knew Bayle’s work. But this did not lead him to Mandeville. 8  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 251. 9  Cf. Chap. 3, note 209. 10  Ibid. 11  Hayek (1949), p. 11.

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And yet Pareto did not travel all the way down this road. In the universe of economic theory, he remained rigidly attached to utilitarianism, in the narrow sense of the term and to the tradition of homo oeconomicus. This allowed him to achieve some results (which we shall soon be focusing on), but denied him the instruments which might have given him a broader approach. He was thus misdirected by the limited nature of his theoretical coordinates. And he committed himself to a labyrinthine and exhausting endeavour, out of which there at times surfaces the non-­ authenticity of the reasons for his support of free trade. It is significant that Schumpeter wrote that, “watching with passionate wrath the doings of the politicians in the Italian and French democracy, [… Pareto] was by indignation and despair, driven into an anti-étatiste attitude which, as the events were to show, was not really his own”.12 His relations with “the twins that are called democracy and capitalism” are highly conflictual.13 This is why it is no surprise that Pareto yearned for the idea of a socialism which had reached “a stage of free competition”,14 forgetting that the aim of a collectivist State is exactly the opposite: to make any form of competition impossible by means of the elimination of private property.15

4.2   Pareto in the Bottleneck of Utilitarianism Pareto may be considered a utilitarianist in a condition of frustration. If he had managed to free himself of utilitarianism, he would have been able to release himself from that condition. This is exactly what he failed to do. In a 1900 essay, published in “Rivista Italiana di Sociologia”, in a phase therefore in which he was trying to go beyond his cultural boundaries, Pareto wrote: “Most human actions derive not from logical reasoning but from emotions; which is true in particular for actions which have a

 Schumpeter (1997), vol. 3, p. 1057.  Schumpeter (1949), p. 151. See also Arendt (1969), pp. 65–6. 14  Pareto (1971), p. 779. 15  Perhaps, believing he was providing a more acceptable “portrait” of the character, Parsons (1949, p. 293) wrote that for Pareto “freedom in thought and personal conduct was far more important than in business”. This certainly does not do a good service to the cause of Pareto, since Parsons transfers onto Pareto his own lack of knowledge of the link connecting freedom of thought with economic freedom. And it is a most serious flaw (cf. Chap. 3, note 86). 12 13

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non-economic goal”.16 These few words are enough to explain the “blind alley” Pareto ended up in.17 That actions can have an economic purpose is an idea of narrowly understood utilitarianism which is behind the notion of homo oeconomicus. As we have however seen from Chap. 1, human action can be qualified as economic only in relation to means. The goals pursued by actors are not normally economic, “excepting those of miser or man for whom making money has become an end in itself”.18 This should all have been clear to Pareto since he was active in an age which came after the marginalist revolution, that is in a period in which the subjectivist theory of value had full course. And that theory shows that man acts on the basis of preferences, within which there come into play “misunderstanding, love, hate, custom, habit […] magnanimity”, and so on.19 Action is triggered by pre-logical and extra-scientific factors: economic evaluation comes into play at the time of the choice of means, which need to be used economically because of their scarcity. Coming face to face with the presence of pre-logical and extra-scientific elements in actions, Pareto found himself as if confronted by a “world turned upside down”. He then experienced the fruitlessness of the “felicific calculus”, recommended by Bentham. This is proved by the fact that he had no hesitation in writing: “let us, for example, set ourselves the problem of investigating whether slavery is moral or not. If there are many masters and few slaves, it may be that the pleasant sensations of the masters have a greater sum (?) than the unpleasant sensations of the slaves; and vice-versa if there are few masters and many slaves. But this solution would certainly not be accepted, in the first case, by those who wish to use the principle of the greatest well-being of the human race. In order to understand whether theft is moral or not, should we compare the unpleasant

 Pareto (1966), p. 233.  This was recognised by Pareto (1966, p. 732) himself: “Having arrived at a certain stage of my research into political economy, I found myself in a blind alley”. 18  See Chap. 1, note 55. 19  Mises (1981, p. 94). The discovery of this led Pareto (1935, vol. 2, p. 586, section 2142 to write: “a society determined exclusively by ‘reason’ does not exist and cannot exist. And not because the ‘prejudices’ of men prevent them from following the dictates of ‘reason’; but because the data of the problem one wishes to resolve with logical-experimental reasoning are not available”. 16 17

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emotions of the victim of the theft to the pleasant emotions of the thief and try to understand which are more intense?”20 The “blind alley” was therefore the one utilitarianism in the narrower sense ends up in. If he had taken into consideration Hume’s well-known law, Pareto would have immediately found the high road: because there is no science of good and evil. Hume stated it repeatedly. He stressed that “moral good and evil are certainly distinguished by our sentiments, not by reason”.21 And Pareto, coming face to face with this problem, experienced it as if it were a discovery. He believed himself the explorer of a new continent. On the contrary, he was in a province, which furthermore had already been extensively and exemplarily explored. The consequences were inevitable: the astonishment of the neophyte and the production of “maps” which were useless or, more exactly, damaging because they led astray.22 The fact is that the link established with the theory of general economic equilibrium prevented Pareto from grasping the entire extent of human action: because that theory is a kind of shirt of Nessus, which among other things makes the market process incomprehensible. In other words, “in typical models of general equilibrium, prices are initially unknown. [And] accordingly, the theory is used to compute the prices needed in order for the harmony of individual equilibria to occur inside general equilibrium [… so that] the final optimal (Pareto’s optimal) condition is in fact pre-­ established: one knows already where one wants to get to. […] reason knows a priori what the optimum is, and it is a case of inducing maximizing individuals to move towards it simultaneously”.23 The goal to be pursued is not freely chosen by the individual, but is imposed by the external situation.24  Pareto (1974a), p. 52.  Hume (1930), vol. 2, p. 284. 22  Pareto (1974a, p. 42) believed he was arguing something particularly original, saying that the concept of a “scientific religion” was “truly monstrous”. Bobbio (1971, p.  30) rightly wrote: “Pareto must have had the feeling that he had made one of those discoveries which open up an infinity of paths”. 23  Ricossa (1988), pp. 11–12. 24  Parsons (1949) devoted an entire book to this problem. The limits of his criticism lie in the fact that he focused on utilitarianism in the narrower sense, without noticing the evolutionist tradition and without understanding that the subjectivist theory of value can take into account the pre-logical and extra-scientific element of action. Cf. Infantino (1998), pp. 131–65. 20 21

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This is not the place to analyse the theory of general economic equilibrium.25 It is enough to add that in that theory, which starts from the assumption that the relevant data are known and that the interdependence of elements is simultaneous, there is no action and there is no uncertainty. Those schemes are a mere exercise in logic, the formalism of which excludes any problematic situation and the personal and creative nature of actions. The subject needs only to “submit” to a pre-determined context, where “by definition it is impossible to have surpluses over costs, or profits”.26 In fact, if there is no uncertainty, there is no entrepreneurial activity; and there cannot be profits or losses. It is therefore not surprising that, outside of the formalism of that theory, Pareto found himself struggling. Since the instruments provided by the theory of general economic equilibrium do not make it possible to “capture” the salient aspects of human action, Pareto concluded that “logical actions are […] results of processes of reasoning. Non-logical actions originate chiefly in definite psychic states, sentiments, subconscious feelings, and the like”.27 Proceeding in this way, however, it happens that he gives the name of (logical) action to something which is not 25  See Chap. 1, note 102. For a lengthier discussion, cf. Infantino (2003), pp. 108–115 and the bibliography indicate therein. 26  Mayer (1937), p. 670. Aron (1967, p. 410) wrote that the rational conduct of Pareto’s subject is the same as that of a “speculator” in the strictly economic field. But this is not so. Pareto (1974a, p. 34) well knew that the actions of speculators are to a significant extent non-logical, because they are based on conjectural and unknown data. As far as the theory of general economic equilibrium is concerned, there is no speculation in it, because the relevant data are known and there is no uncertainty. As Kirzner (1973, pp. 10–1) wrote, we would in that case have a “pattern of perfectly dovetailing decisions. No decision made will fail to be carried out, and no opportunity will fail to be exploited. Each market participant will have correctly forecast all the relevant decisions of others; he will have laid his plans fully cognizant of what he will be unable to do in the market, but in the same time fully awake to what he is able to do in the market. Clearly, with such a state of affairs the market process must immediately cease”. Perrin (1971, p. 34) had later argued that the “assumptions of Pareto’s economics are those of classical economics: only the rational behaviour of individual agents are taken into account”. But Perrin’s statement contains a very serious misunderstanding. As we have already seen (cf. Chap. 3, note 251), the expressions “classical economics” and “neoclassical economics” are misleading, because both encompass two conflicting traditions: the evolutionist one and the strictly utilitarian tradition. It is therefore extremely incorrect to place on the same level Adam Smith and Bentham (and John Stuart Mill) or Menger and Walras. Pareto is a rigorous utilitarian, who methodologically prolongs the excesses and the naiveties of Mill’s homo oeconomicus. See Infantino (2010). 27  Pareto (1935), vol. 1, pp. 87–8, section 161.

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an action at all. It is only the link that, in a situation in which everything is already given, connects the means to the end. Pareto himself reveals this: “There are actions that use means appropriate to ends and which logically link means with ends. There are other actions in which those traits are missing […] we apply the term logical actions to actions that logically conjoin means to ends not only from the standpoint of the subject performing them, but from the standpoint of other persons who have a more extensive knowledge – in other words, to actions that are logical both subjectively and objectively in the sense just explained. Other actions we shall call non-logical (by no means the same as illogical)”.28 As Max Weber explained, “the highest degree of rational understanding is attained in cases involving the meanings of logically and mathematically related propositions; their meaning may be immediately and unambiguously intelligible”.29 But actions are something more and different.30 And they coincide precisely with the actions which Pareto terms non-logical and around which his theory fails spectacularly, because upon it weigh the consequences of a whole series of errors.

28  Op. cit., p. 77, section 150. It is worth pointing out that Pizzorno (1989, pp. 28–30) equates non-logical action with irrational action, thus altering the meaning Pareto gave to that kind of action. Nietzsche (1986, p. 28) rightly argued that “only very naive people are capable of believing that the nature of man could be transformed into a pure logical one”. He (ibid.) also stated: “Among the things that can reduce a thinker to despair is the knowledge that the illogical is a necessity of mankind, and that much good proceeds from the illogical”. Leaving aside the dramatisation Nietzsche was so fond of, one can more simply say that action is initiated by pre-logical and extra-scientific elements. 29  Weber (1978), vol. 1, p. 5. 30  One should add that Weber himself was not aware of the consequences which the dependence of economic value on subjective elements produces for the theory of action. In his well-known essay on marginal utility, he (1922, p. 379) accused economic theory, including marginalism in all its versions, of operating with an idea of action which is permanently subjected to “calculation”. This led him to his well-known quadripartite division, in which the “instrumentally rational action” coincides with the utilitarian approach. And yet, as was soon pointed out by Mises (1981, pp.  75–91), that type of action does not exist, because all actions originate from a pre-logical and extra-scientific element. See also Infantino (1998, pp. 125–30), where there is a discussion (p. 200) of the “knock-on effect” of Weber’s error on Parsons.

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4.3   Pareto and the Social Cycle In his attempt to extricate himself from the tangle he had ended up in, Pareto developed his own terminology. In action, he saw essentially two elements. “The element a corresponds […] to certain instincts of man, or more exactly, men, because a has no objective existence and differs in different individuals; and it is probably because of its correspondence to instincts that is virtually constant in social phenomena. The element b represents the work of the mind in accounting for a. That is why b is much more variable, as reflecting the play of imagination”.31 For example, “politician is inspired to champion the theory of ‘solidarity’ by an ambition to obtain money, power, distinctions […]. If the politician were to say, ‘Believe in solidarity because, if you do it, means money for me’, he would get many laughs and few votes. He therefore has to take stand on principles that are acceptable to his constituents”.32 Pareto gave element (a) the name of “residues” and element (b) the name of “derivations”. To use Schumpeter’s language, the former are the “objective determinants of actual behavior”.33 “Derivations”, on the other hand, are the social disguise of the “residues”, a “cover” for what actors really intend to achieve. This is not all. Pareto distinguished between various classes of residues. But the most significant ones for our purposes are the first, which contains the “instinct of combinations”, and the second, which concerns the “persistence of aggregates”.34 The residues of the first type are an instinct which is “intensely powerful in the human species and has probably been, as it still remains, one of the important factors in civilization. Figuring as a residue in vast numbers of phenomena, is an inclination to combine certain things with other things. The scientist in his laboratory makes combinations according to certain norms, certain purposes, certain hypotheses, for the most part rational (at times he combines at random)”.35 The  Pareto (1935), vol. 2, p. 501, section 850.  Op. cit., p. 502, section 854. 33  Schumpeter (1949), p. 172. Similarly Parsons (1949, p. 270), according to whom “the real forces of action are not expressed in the theory, but the latter is like a veil covering them”. Pareto (1935, vol. 2, p. 520, section 875) explained that “the residues a must not be confused with the sentiments or instincts which they correspond. The residue are the manifestations of sentiments and the instincts just as the rising of the mercury in a thermometer is a manifestation of the rise in temperature”. 34  Pareto (1935), vol. 2, pp. 516–7, section 888. 35  Op. cit., p. 519, section 889. 31 32

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“instinct of combinations” is accompanied by “innovation, inventiveness, projecting and scheming. The tendency is to attain ends by cleverness and resourcefulness rather than by persistence and steadfastness, to use indirect rather direct methods, to avoid overt conflict, to circumvent rather than override obstacles”.36 Let us turn to the second type. “In the concrete case residues from other class also figure, notably residues from class II. Where is not for the persistence of certain relations, the combinations of Class I would be ephemeral insubstantial things. One might compare the situation to a building. The instinct of combinations, the quest for the best possible one, the faith in its efficacy, provide the materials. Persistence of associations gives stability to the structure”.37 These residues involve “a stability of combinations once formed, steadfastness and directness, willingness to accept open conflict […] traditionalism rather than innovation, an absence of cleverness and resourcefulness”.38 Let us see which developments are engendered by these first steps of Pareto’s design. “In speaking of ‘speculators’, we must not think of them as actors in a melodrama, who administer and rule the world, executing wicked designs by stratagem dark. Such a conception of them would be no more real than the fairy-story. Speculators are just people who keep their minds on their business, and being well supplied with Class I residues, take advantage of them to make money, following lines of least resistance, as all everybody else does”.39 “Almost anybody who possesses a good supply of Class I residues [instinct of combinations] and know how to use his talents in industry, agriculture, commerce, and the arts; in organizing financial enterprises, honest or dishonest; in duping the good-natured producers of savings; in obtaining licence to exploit less clever neighbours by political influence, custom tariffs, or other favours of all sorts and kinds – is certain, unless he has very bad luck indeed, not only to amass wealth but to win honours and power, to become, in a word, a member of the ruling class”.40 “If the intelligence and cunning are used chiefly to play upon interests – which, however, does not necessarily imply disregard of sentiments – the result is governments like the demagogic regime in Athens, the rule of the  Parsons (1949), p. 279.  Pareto (1935), vol. 2, p. 520, section 891. 38  Parsons (1949), p. 279. 39  Pareto (1935), vol. 4, p. 1576, section 2254. 40  Op. cit., p. 1635, section 2300. 36 37

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Roman aristocracy at various moments under the Republic, the governments of many mediaeval republics, and finally the very important type of government flourishing in our day-government by speculators”.41 Examples of governments which stand on the residues of class II (persistence of aggregates) are those of the “Greek cities in the age of ‘tyrants’ of Sparta, of Rome under Augustus and Tiberius, of the Venetian Republic during the last centuries of its existence, of many European countries in the eighteenth century […]. Class-circulation is generally slow. They are not expensive governments. On the other hand they fail to stimulate economic production, whether because they are conservative by temperament, recoiling from new enterprise, or because they put no premiums in the class-circulation on individuals distinguished by instincts of economic combinations […] the ideal of governments of that type is a nation crystallized in its institutions (Sparta, Rome in the day of the Low Empire, Venice of the Decadence). They may grow wealthy through conquests (Sparta, Rome); but since no wealth is produced in that manner, the prosperity is necessarily precarious (Sparta, Rome). Furthermore, in times past, such régimes have tended to degenerate into government by armed mobs (praetorians, janissaries), which can do nothing but squander wealth”.42 What happens? “Very loosely speaking, the ruling and the subject classes stand towards each other very much as two nations respectively alien. A predominance of interests that are primarily industrial and commercial enriches the ruling class in individuals that are shrewd, astute, and well provided with combination instincts; and divests it of individuals of the sturdy impulsive type richly endowed with instincts of group-­ persistence […] if cunning, chicanery, combinations were all there was to government, the dominion of the class in which Class I residues by far predominate would last over a very long period and come to an end only with the senile degeneration of the stock itself. But governing is also a matter of force, and as Class I residues grow stronger and Class II residues weaker, the individuals in power become less and less capable of using force”.43 In short, history is a succession of elites characterised by the use of cunning (foxes) and elites characterised by the resort to force (lions), governments marked by skepticism, which mainly make use of deception,  Op. cit., p. 1623, section 2275.  Op. cit., pp. 1622–3, section 2274. 43  Op. cit., p. 1556, section 2227. 41 42

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and governments based on material force and the force of religious feelings.44 History has a cyclical pattern. Whatever the elite in power, all need to disguise their real goals. They must convince the ruled. And they will do it through “derivations” which are themselves a product of “residues”. Human being “has such a weakness for adding logical developments to non-logical behaviour that anything can serve as an excuse for him to turn to that favourite occupation”.45

4.4   Psychologism and Residues In view of their importance in Pareto’s theory, residues are the elements which need to be addressed first of all. Why residues should be those and those alone is something which their inventor did not say. And with the same arbitrary decision Pareto made, anyone else could extend or narrow their range and claim the same legitimacy. This means that, in themselves, residues have no explanatory power, because they themselves ought to be explained. And so Norberto Bobbio was on the mark when he wrote: “Pareto takes an exclusively psychological stance; and in addition to that it is a rudimentary type of psychology. In this way, he falls into the same error which he so much blames his adversaries for: he appeals to human nature with a way of reasoning where human nature stands for everything he cannot explain. Why do men cover up or distort their feelings with fine 44  Pareto (1974b, p. 136) wrote: “This phenomenon of new elites which, owing to a ceaseless motion of circulation, originate from the lower strata of society, rise to the higher ones, expand there and, later, fall into decadence, are annihilated and disappear, is one of the main historical facts, and it is indispensable to bear it in mind, in order to understand major social movements”. Pareto (ibid.) explained the phenomenon in the following terms: “The decadence of the elites, which are recruited by cooptation or in some similar way, has various and in part obscure causes. [… The] example which comes immediately to mind is that of the Catholic clergy. How deep the decadence of this elite from the ninth to the eighteenth century! Heredity is not involved here. Decadence has its cause in the fact that the elite for its recruitment chose individuals who were always of mediocre quality. In part this derives from the fact that this elite was gradually losing sight of its ideal, was less sustained by faith and by the spirit of sacrifice; and in part it also derives from external circumstances: from the fact that other elites rose and took the best elements away from the declining elite. Since the proportion of these elements in relation to the rest of the population varies very little, if they move to one side they are lacking on the other; if commerce, industry, administration, etc., provide them with broad opportunities, they will necessarily be lacking for some other elite”. 45  Pareto (1935), vol. 1, p. 104, section 180.

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reasoning? Why do they need to do it? Why is the need an ineliminable given in human nature? In the category of “residues”, Pareto included all those original givens for which he was unable to find a plausible explanation […]. As one can see, it is an explanation of the following kind: “It is that way because that is the way it is”.46 Let us try to find a way out of psychologism. As we have already highlighted, men act to satisfy a need, to achieve a project. This is the motive for action. But action is social, it occurs, that is, through the cooperation of others. And each individual “pays for” that cooperation through services provided in exchange for those received. When, in Pareto’s work, one reads that actions are not explained by what Ego and Alter declare to each other, we found ourselves confronted by a hasty and superficial judgement. Pareto wrote: “The majority of men merely desire to […] realize their own happiness while seeming to strive for the happiness of others; cloak their self-seeking under mantle of religion, ethics, patriotism, humanitarism, party loyalty, and so on; work for material satisfactions while seeming to be working only for ideals. In that way, furthermore, such men are able to win the support of people who are attracted by the beauty of ideal, T, but who would be indifferently, if at all, interested in the humble, earthly purpose, m. That is why they go rummaging about for theories adapted to the achievement of their purpose, and find them without difficulty; for the market is glutted with theories manufactured by theologians, moralists, social writers, and other people of the kind, who keep their counters covered with an article so great in demand, and so are able to attain their own advantage while seeming only to be in quest of the sublime”.47 And yet Pareto himself stated that “cynically selfish people are rare and downright hypocrites equally so”.48 He then added that most human beings wish to “reconcile” their own advantage with the requirements of sociality.49 But he was unable to provide any explanation. This was made impossible by the very premise of his analysis. For he believed that “derivations” are “of great importance to human societies. They aim primarily at obviating possible conflicts between individual interest and the collective 46  Bobbio (1971), p. 119. Valade (1990) presented Pareto as the deviser of “another sociology”. But what Pareto really did not formulate is a genuine theory of social action. 47  Pareto (1935), vol. 3, p. 1314, section 1884. 48  Ibid. 49  Ibid.

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interest. One of the devices most commonly used to attain that end is to confuse the two interests by derivations, asserting that the interests are identical and that, working for good of the community, the individual is working for his own good”.50 As a result the “re-conciliation” of interests would occur. If, however, this were the case (and Pareto does not account for this), the idea that the social element is a mere cover for personalistic purposes would collapse. The fact is that, not having a mechanism capable of identifying the terms of social cooperation, Pareto claimed that actions were explained by “emotions, sub-conscience” and so forth. In this way, he elevated personal motives to the status of sufficient conditions for action. He did not realise that acting is always interacting and that when others provide us their services they are not interested in the goal each of us intends to attain but in what is done for them. If this is assessed adequately, there occurs the “re-conciliation” of interests and the co-adaptation of actions. In other words, each individual must emphasise what they do for the Other. It is no accident that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca wrote: “The goal of every argumentation is […] to provoke or increase the adherence of the minds to the theses which are submitted for their consent: an argumentation is effective if it manages to increase the amount of support so as to determine the desired action among the listeners […] or at least engender a willingness to action among them“.51 If one reads this statement having in mind the mechanism of social cooperation, it becomes clearer: because it is enriched by the reasons for which we need to push others to action. In Pareto’s writing there is nothing of the sort. The paradox is that the verbose Trattato di sociologia sheds no light on the dynamics of social cooperation and in no way shows how society itself is a fabric of expectations. Pareto did nothing to outline a possible solution. He focused on politics in the narrower sense, without in fact providing the explanations he assumed he had given. He failed to understand that the exchange between rulers and ruled is only an expression of social cooperation of a more general kind. Pareto would have needed a general theory of action, through which to explain also what occurs in political territory in the narrower sense. Nevertheless, by always remaining within politics strictly understood, where what the rulers do for the ruled cannot be subjected to direct control and where judgements are strongly influenced by the set of beliefs  Op. cit., p. 1481, section 1479.  Perelmann and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1976), p. 59.

50 51

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to which we give the name of ideology, Pareto went as far as to see social justification as a mere and permanent mystification. Consequently, he remained the prisoner of a simplistic approach. And he evaded the task of the social scientist, which is to identify the conditions which make possible or impossible such a mystification, the “lame” exchange in which one of the parties executes its performance and the other, despite deriving all the benefits from it, avoids performing its own obligation. Deception became an obsessive feature of reality or a nightmare confronted by the paltry idea which sees psychology as the “foundation of political economics and in general of every social science”.52 Pareto evaded the elementary consideration that, if the psychological situations or the intentions of subjects were capable of explaining the outcome of actions, there would be no social sciences. This means, as Mises appropriately emphasised, that “economics begins at the point at which psychology leaves off”.53 The “point at which the science of action begins its work is the mutual incompatibility of individual desires and the impossibility of perfect satisfaction. Since it is not granted to man to satisfy all his desires completely […], he must choose and value, prefer and set aside – in short, act”.54 In this way, one is led into the field of cooperation and the unintended consequences of intended human actions. The theory of social cycle is a product of psychologism. Pareto was critical of Comte, who he accused of having had a “personal evolution directly opposite to the evolution that he represents human societies as undergoing”.55 And yet, just as Comte extracted his law of three stages from an “inclination” of mankind, Pareto derived the social cycle from “attitudes” present in man, which he never explained and which are never measured against the historico-social context.56 Driven by a contemptuous positivist inspiration, Pareto mocked philosophies of history. He wrote that they have a faith to which they subject facts. Nevertheless, he himself did no better. He enveloped his preferences in a language which was pretentiously new. But he did not construct a work of science; and often he did not even respect the logic he trumpeted so loudly. There is a passage, taken from an address of his, where one can read: “The adjectives  Pareto (1974a), p. 33.  Mises (1981), p. 3. See also Weber (1922), p. 361. Cf. Also Chap. 1, note 18. 54  Mises (1981), p. 57. 55  Pareto (1935), vol. 3, p. 983, section 1537. 56  For a more extensive discussion of the topic, see Infantino (1998), pp. 53–4. 52 53

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­individual and social are vaguer than the corresponding substantives. Since man lives in society, from a certain point of view it can be said that all his characteristics are individual, and considering the same phenomenon from another point of view, it can be said that all his characteristics are social. In short, there is no sure way to separate these two kinds of characteristic from each other”.57 That is not exactly the way things are. But it is precisely what Pareto is asserting here which rules out the primacy of psychology. And another passage of his rules it out it even more strongly: “the form of society is determined if the sentiments are given, and the external circumstances in which the society is situated; or if the circumstances only are given, but the sentiments are regarded as determined by the circumstances”.58 These statements seem to refer to a kind of “double entry”, a mutual dynamism between actor and his context; or they even seem to foreshadow a primacy of context. In both cases the pretension or the possibility of constructing a theory of action starting from psychology are denied.

4.5   The Suppression of Personal Preferences Franz Borkenau was perhaps right in viewing Pareto’s work as a long-­ winded and disturbing “political manifesto”,59 a manifesto targeted particularly against democracy. Norberto Bobbio who, by his own admission, showed extreme “indulgence” with regard to Pareto60 wrote: “For the men of my generation at least, human folly was not invented by Pareto: if he had lived another ten years, he would, if anything, have had to blame himself for being too discreet”.61 And yet Borkenau had seen things more clearly: for Pareto did not lack time to “blame himself for being too discreet”. He lacked the time and the culture to understand the function of law, to realise how high the value of the “rule of law” and socially regulated exchange is and to repent having placed his confidence in the use of force. That Pareto’s approach leads towards “inhospitable” places is also shown by what was to have been the most essentially theoretical part of his  Pareto (1966), p. 324.  Pareto (1935), vol. 4, p. 1475, section 2142. 59  Borkenau (1936), p. 169. 60  Bobbio (1971), p. 79. 61  Op. cit., p. 75. 57 58

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work. Pareto wrote: “In this matter of derivations, the capital fact is that they do not correspond exactly to the residues in which they originate. In that lie the chief obstacles to the constitution of a social science; for the derivations only are known to us, and we are sometimes at loss as to how to find our way back from the derivations to the residues that underlie them”.62 The solution, as Pareto himself stated, might then be found in the coincidence of personal motivation and social justification, accomplished by the transformation of “reasonings” into “emotions” and “derivations into residues”.63 We find ourselves here faced by a situation in which Pareto would like to put an end to any “double entry” between Ego and Alter.64 In other words, he would like what we do for others to be the one and only motive for action. It is an idea which, if it were to come true, would deprive individuals of any autonomy and any personal reasons for action. Confronted by this problem, even Durkheim had to give in. So much so that he had to recognise that “it is impossible to pursue an end to which we are indifferent – i.e. that does not appear to us as good and does not effect our sensibility […]. we must admit a certain element of eudemonism and one could show that desirability and pleasure permeate the obligation”.65  Pareto (1935), vol. 4, p. 2085, section 2083.  Op. cit., vol. 3, p. 1201, section 1746. Obviously, Pareto (op. cit., p. 1300, section 1868) knew that this route was shared with Sorel: “The capacity for influencing human conduct that is possessed by sentiments expressed in form of derivations that overstep experience and reality throws light upon a phenomenon that has been well observed and analysed by Georges Sorel, the fact, namely, that, if a social doctrine (it would be more exact to say the sentiments manifested by a social doctrine) is to have any influence, it has to take the form of a myth”. It is also useful to point out that this “suggestion” is no different to what was advocated by Rousseau (1997, p. 53), who looked towards a “most remarkable change”, capable of “substituting justice for instinct” in man’s conduct. See also Rousseau (1974), p. 49. Considering the “sentimentalism” Pareto attributed to Rousseau, this is truly ironic. 64  Pareto (1935, vol. 3, p. 948, section 1498) was led, by his blindness towards the mechanism of social cooperation, to argue: “If the [collective] interest is real and the individual acts logically to favour it, there is not derivation: it is a case of plain logical conduct designed to attain an end designed by an individual […]. More often, however, the objective end differs from the subjective purpose, and we get non-logical conduct justified by derivations. This type of derivation is very generally used by people who want something and pretend to be asking for it not for themselves, but in behalf of the community”. Pareto never suspected in the least that the objective end, what we do for others, and the subjective end, what we personally wish to pursue, coexist and engender the Janus-like entity of social life. Cf. previous chapter, Sect. 3.7. 65  Durkheim (2010), pp. 21–2. 62 63

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What escaped Pareto, or what he failed to bring out the tremendous consequences of, is the fact that the transformation of social justification into the motive of action erases individual autonomy and leads to a compulsory hierarchy of ends, legitimised by the resort to a “privileged point of view on the world”. Everything becomes public or political in the narrower sense. Prohibition is blindly hurled against what is “private” (and against voluntary cooperation, the extent and volume of which depend precisely on the possibility of unintentionally cooperating with the ends of others, i.e. of acting through individually determined choices and intersecting the action of the Other exclusively in the phase of exchange of means). Obviously, it may occur that the coincidence of personal motivation and social justification takes place voluntarily in extraordinary moments and actions in life.66 But the lack of coincidence is a circumstance to be recorded as positive. Georg Simmel explained: “the entire system of relations of men in the area of social categories would be different if each person presented himself to the other solely as what is in his category, as the bearer of the social role which is due to him at that moment. Certainly individuals, just like professions and social situations, are differentiated according to the measure of the furthermore which they possess or allow together with their social content”.67 In other words: “life is not entirely social: we form our mutual relations […] with the negative reservation of a part of our personality which does not enter into them […] the individual soul can never be in a connection without being outside it at the same time”.68 As we have already pointed out, our action is divided into two parts: what we do to fulfil our preferences and what we do to obtain the cooperation of others.69 If our lives were used up entirely in the exclusive performance of social tasks, and moreover compulsory ones, that “furthermore” which Simmel referred to would cease to exist and actors would be deprived of the possibility of choosing their identities and would be dehumanised.70  See Durkheim (2010, p. 48), Weber (1978, p. 1120), Sorokin (1942, pp. 14–15).  Simmel (1908), p. 36. 68  Op. cit., p. 38. 69  Cf. also previous chapter, Sect. 3.7. 70  After a brief trip to Germany (in 1935), where he fully understood what was happening in German society at the time, Ortega y Gasset (1935, p. 191) wrote: “when a people mainly set themselves the task of organising their collective life, it pays this result with the de-individualisation of the men who are part of it”. 66 67

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Would such a “dehumanisation” then solve Pareto’s problem? Not really because the human condition is characterised by scarcity, so that personal preferences (material or ideal) populate the minds of men, even when they are not declarable. The only certain result of such a process of de-­ individualisation is that collective life is placed under a heavy and watertight hood of dogmatism and hypocrisy, which is capable of producing effects which are worse than those which are decried.71 Pareto should have been aware of this. For, if Machiavelli entered history with the precise intention of delegitimising the idealised image of princes,72 Pareto set himself the goal of discrediting the entire human race. It is no accident that he wrote that “the person who would persuade others begins by persuading himself; and even if he is moved in the beginning by thoughts of personal advantage, he comes eventually to believe that his real interest is the welfare of others”.73 In other words, man deceives himself: “men are not aware of the forces which lead them to act; they give their actions imaginary causes, which are very different from the real causes”.74 But Pareto was not consistent. He set things out in a way which suggested that “self-serving politicians” and “speculators” were present only in democracy: because in this political system class I residues (instincts of combinations) satisfy the “need for logical developments”.75 And, if this is so, the responsibility for political mystification should be attributed, more than to the individual or even exclusively, to the institutional context. Setting aside all the objections against psychologism, let us see how it is possible, starting from Pareto’s problem, to reach very different conclusions. Pareto probably found inspiration in a passage by Nietzsche, which has already been quoted: “With all the great deceivers there is a noteworthy occurrence to which they owe their power. In the actual act of deception, with all its preparations, its enthralling in the voice, expression and gesture, in the midst of the scenery designed to give it effect, they are overcome by belief in themselves: it is this which then speaks so miraculously and compellingly to those who surround them. The founders of religions are distinguished from these great deceivers by the fact that they 71  Topitsch (see note 243 in Chap. 2) wrote that in these situations “the deluded person is the classic victim of the hypocrites”. 72  Gilbert (1977), p. 48. 73  Pareto (1935), vol. 2, p. 502–3, section 854. 74  Pareto (1974b, pp. 138–139). 75  Pareto (1935), vol. 2, p. 517, section 888.

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never emerge from this state of self-deception: or very rarely they experience for once that moment of clarity when doubt overcomes them; usually, however, they comfort themselves by ascribing those moments of clarity to the evil antagonist. Self-deception has to exist if a grand effect is to be produced. For men believe in the truth of that which is plainly and strongly believed”.76 From this it follows that, if there is deception in Athens, there is no less deception in Sparta. Lycurgus had received his mandate from the Pythia.77 At the basis of a militarised society like Sparta there was therefore a religious belief. As Max Weber wrote, “genuine charismatic domination”, the kind which derives from a presumed link with cosmic forces or which in any case claims it possesses privileged knowledge, recognises “no abstract laws and regulations and no formal adjudication. Its objective law flows from highly personal experience of divine grace and go-like heroic strength and rejects all external order solely for the sake of glorifying genuine prophetic and heroic ethos”.78 To this one can add (and it is not insignificant as a fact) the need for followers, since “the leader and his success are completely dependent upon the functioning of his machine and hence not on his own motives”.79 Which is tantamount to saying that the “belief”, “even when subjectively sincere, is in a great number of cases no more than an ethical ‘legitimation’ of cravings for revenge, power, booty and spoils”.80 But there is more: the oracle is certainly not preferable to limitation of power and popular consent which has a term and which can be renewed or revoked. The absolutist or totalitarian logic of charismatically (gnostically) oriented political movements sets as a condition of “salvation” the annihilation of every group whose “perversity” is identified as the source of the precariousness of the human condition, power and social conflict. And yet the achievement of that goal is illusory. The “nascent state” and moments of “collective effervescence” soon exhaust themselves. The institutionalisation of charisma reveals on a daily basis that the human condition cannot be reshaped and that power and conflict cannot be eliminated. As Max Weber once again correctly argued, “every charisma is on the road from a  See Chap. 2, note 221.  For the relevant references, see Infantino (2003), pp. 45–8. 78  Weber (1978), vol. 2, p. 1115. 79  Weber (1946), p. 125. 80  Ibid. This text is also quoted in Chap. 2 (note 241). On this topic, see also Michels (1966), p. 519. 76 77

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t­urbulently emotional life that knows no economic rationality to a slow death by suffocation under the weight of material interests: every hour of its existence brings it nearer to this end”.81 The personal motives of actors gain the upper hand and “the emotional revolutionarism is followed by the traditionalist routine of everyday life; the crusading leader and the faith itself fade away, or, what is even more effective, the faith becomes part of the conventional phraseology of Philistines and banausic technicians”.82 The attempt at eliminating personal preferences does not therefore erase the possibility of political mystification. In fact, it reinforces the conditions which make it possible. And this is not all. As was acutely underscored by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, if one takes away from “action based on choice any rational justification”, one makes “the exercise of human freedom absurd”.83 Or also: if one adopts a restrictive and misleading criterion of rationality, one leaves “the way completely open to suggestion and violence”.84 The real paradox in Pareto’s work lies in the fact that in order to defend himself from the deceptions of rulers, he did not ask to limit their powers, but delivered himself over to the use of force, to the superlative of politics.85 He did not have the legal understanding to realise that those who promise to “restore” legality with the full powers of force are already writing the first page of a new deception. And it is serious that, as an economist, he neglected the fact that, even in the relationship between rulers and ruled, a system based on choice and competition is 81  Weber (1978), p. 1120. Alberoni (1977, p. 366) wrote that “every nascent state comprises an exploration of the possible starting from the impossible“. 82  Cf. Chap. 2, note 241. 83  Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1976), p. 62. Furthermore (op. cit., p. 73): “The use of argumentation implies renouncing the exclusive resort to force, implies that some value is attributed to the adhesion of the interlocutor obtained with the help of reasoned persuasion, that the interlocutor himself is not treated like an object, but that his freedom of judgement is resorted to. The use of argumentation assumes that a community of spirits is established which for its entire duration excludes the use of violence”. And he added (op. cit., p. 77): “since the purpose of argumentation is to obtain consent, one could say that argumentation aims at eliminating the preliminary conditions to a future argumentation. But since a rhetorical test never has a constraining value, the silence which is imposed should never be considered definitive, if the conditions which allow for argumentation are actually established. The institutions which regulate discussion are important, because argumentative thought and the action it prepares and determines are intimately linked to each other”. 84  Op. cit., p. 679. 85  This is a paradox which has affected many people, including Michels.

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preferable to a prescriptive and monopolistic system: because it is through freedom of choice and competition that we can refute a productive paradigm, a scientific theory and critically screen the consequences generated by the institutionalisation of political values and beliefs.86 Therefore, Bobbio was right to see Pareto “more as a someone continuing Machiavelli than as a contemporary of Durkheim”.87 But this is very partial. Bobbio should have stressed, as we have seen here, that what makes Pareto’s horizon narrow and oppressive is the absence of law. The magnetic needle which Pareto used oscillates feverishly between deception and force. And it never shows the North of “socially regulated exchange” and “conflict regulation”. This is due to the fact that Pareto referred back to Machiavelli to oppose the Machiavellianism of the Marxian project. Therefore, it is no accident that one sees such an alarming convergence. Marx shared with Engels the idea that parliament was the “national talkshop”, which produces “a boring verbal battle”88; and both deemed democracy to be “a contradiction in itself, an untruth, nothing but hypocrisy”.89 Marx and Engels also stated that “the so-called rights of man, the rights of man as different from rights of the citizen are nothing but the rights of the member of civil society, i.e. egoist man, man separated from other men and the community”.90 The founder of so-called scientific socialism argued, that is, that political mystification was a product of class relations: because “the ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships”.91 And it would be possible to be freed “from the chimeras, the ideas, dogmas, imaginary beings” only through the abolition of private property and the coming of Socialism.92 Hence the central role given to the de-individualisation of 86  However “indulgent” one might be with Pareto, it is difficult to forgive him the (not only linguistic) “tangle”, out of which the following statement issues: “In the sphere of political economy, certain measures (for example, wage cutting) of business men (entrepreneurs) working under conditions of free competition are to some extent non-logical actions […], that is, the objective end does not coincide with the subjective purpose. On the other end, if they enjoy a monopoly, the same measures (wage cutting) become logical actions” (Pareto 1935, vol. 1, p. 89, section 159). 87  Cf. note 6 in this chapter. 88  Engels (1975a), p. 379. 89  Engels (1975b), p. 393. 90  Marx (1984), p. 52. 91  Marx, Engels (1974), p. 64. 92  Op. cit., p. 37. Marx and Engels (op. cit., p. 64) also wrote: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society

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man, with the cancellation of the “private” and the transformation of every instant of life into a public or political fact in the narrower sense. These are the same results which were produced by Pareto’s putting derivations in the place of residues and giving them the goal of making the mystifications of democracy impossible. And that is not all. Marx saw violence as the “midwife” of history.93 And Pareto stated: “the use of force is indispensable to society; and when the higher classes are averse to the use of force, which ordinarily happens because the majority in those classes come to rely wholly on their skill at chicanery, and the minority shrink from energetic acts now through stupidity, now through cowardice, it becomes necessary, if society is to subsist and prosper, that that governing class be replaced by another which is willing and able to use force”.94

4.6   Speculators or Adventurers? Pareto continually resorted to terms like “self-interested politicians” and “speculators”. These are two terms which however do not go well together. If he had analysed the market process, instead of insisting on a pattern (that of general economic equilibrium) in which the significant data are is at the same time its ruling intellectual force”. And further: “The division of labour […] manifests itself also […] as division of mental and material labour, so that inside this class one part appears as the thinkers of the class (its active, conceptive ideologists, who make the perfecting of the illusion of the class about itself their source of livelihood)” (op. cit., p. 65). In order to declare himself unaffected by such conditioning, Marx attributes to himself and the class he claims to be the representative of a monopoly over historical truth, a “privileged point of view on the world”, which makes it possible to foresee the goal to which humankind is proceeding. Hence also Mannheim’s theory of freischwebende Intelligenz, which postulates precisely the existence of a privileged source of knowledge. Cf. on the topic, Infantino (1998, p. 182) and the bibliography presented there. 93  Marx (1976), vol. 1, p. 916. 94  Pareto (1935, vol. 3, p. 1293, section 1858), who also wrote: “The facts which have occurred and are occurring in Italy give us many confirmations of the conclusions drawn from history […], the remissive will, the weakness of the rulers are opposed by the fierce actions and the violence of their adversaries, who are made strong by the cowardice of those could stand up to them” (Pareto 1966, p. 999). Compare the following statement by Marx (1976, vol. 1, p. 874): “In actual history, it is a notorious fact that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force play the greatest part”. It is also worth stressing that Pareto (1935, vol. 4, p. 1535, note 2) recognised “the surpassing merit” of Sorel’s Réflexions sur la violence. In actual fact, Pareto and Sorel levelled the same criticism against “democratic demoralization”. In both cases, it is therefore “bourgeois degeneration” which legitimises the resort to violence.

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already known, he would have realised that each actor, in consideration of the situation of uncertainty they are in, is forced to speculate, that is to formulate conjectures about the future. He should have used the term “adventurer” for the phenomenon, since he described “speculators” as those who obtain “favour after favour from [… the] various governments”,95 act in the present without any concern for future consequences, as in Ancient Rome when they “brought on the fall of the Republic and the dictatorships of Caesar and Augustus, but without knowing that they were headed in those directions”.96 They “are just people who keep their minds on their business, and being well supplied with Class I residues, take advantage of them to make money”.97 They do this by invoking the name “of the labouring classes or even the public interest”.98 They are therefore “adventurers”. In Chap. 1 we have already made use of Simmel’s analysis to provide a profile of adventurers. We now need to go back to Simmel again. He explained that “something becomes an adventure only” if it is a “specific organization of some significant meaning with a beginning and an end”.99 Simmel also stated that the adventurer is “the extreme example the ahistorical man, who lives in the present. On the one hand, he is not determined by any past [… and,] nor, on the other hand, does the future exist for him”.100 Again: “In the adventure […] we forcibly pull the world into ourselves. This becomes clear when we compare the adventure with the manner in which we wrest the gifts of the world through work”.101 This “has an organic relation to the world. In a conscious fashion, it develops the world’s forces and materials toward their culmination in the human purpose, whereas in adventure we have a nonorganic relation to the world. Adventure has the gesture of the conqueror, the quick seizure of opportunity”.102 One can say that, “in the man of action, the idea is the driver of passion” whereas in the adventurer it is “only its pretext”.103

 Pareto (1935), vol. 3, p. 948, section 1498.  Op. cit., vol. 4, pp. 1577–8, section 2254. 97  Op. cit., p. 1576, section 2254. 98  Op. cit., vol. 3, p. 948, section 1498. 99  Simmel (1919), p. 190. 100  Ibid. 101  Op. cit., p. 193. 102  Ibid. 103  Ortega y Gasset (1916), p. 92. 95 96

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If we compare Simmel’s definition of “adventure” with Pareto’s description, it all adds up. Pareto’s “speculators” are Simmel’s “adventurers”. And Max Weber’s as well. For he wrote: “All over the world there have been merchants, wholesale and retail, local and engaged in foreign trade. Loans of all kinds have been made, and there have been banks with the most various functions, at least comparable to ours of, say, sixteenth century. Sea loans, commenda, and transactions and associations similar to the Kommenditgesellschaft have been widespread, even as continuous businesses. Whenever money finances of public bodies have been existed, money-lenders have appeared, as in Babylon, Hellas, India, China, Rome. They have financed wars and piracy, contracts and building operations of all sorts. In overseas policy they have functioned as colonial entrepreneurs, as planters with slaves, or directly or indirectly forced labour, and have formed domains, offices and, above all, taxes. They have financed party leaders in elections and condottieri in civil wars […]. This kind of entrepreneur, the capitalist adventurer, has existed everywhere […] their activities were […] directed to acquisition […] of booty, whether directly in war or in the form of continuous fiscal booty by exploitation of subjects”.104 Weber furthermore specified: the “structure and spirit of this robber capitalism differ radically from the rational management of an ordinary capitalist large-scale enterprise and is most similar to some age-old phenomena: the huge rapacious enterprises in the financial and colonial sphere, and ‘occasional trade’ with the mixture of piracy and slave hunting”.105 Hence the distinction, which Weber emphasised with particular intensity, between “politically oriented capitalism” and “market-­ oriented capitalism”.106 In the former, earnings are “politically determined”,107 that is produced through an association with public power. In the latter, profit derives from the ability to satisfy, in a context of certainty of law, competition and calculability of costs, the needs of consumers. It follows that the means used by “politically oriented capital” are “irrational” compared with those used by “market-oriented capitalism”.108 Despite the fact that the terms he made use of are somewhat ill-chosen, Weber effectively highlighted that the adventurer’s habitat lies in the  Weber (1950), p. 20.  Weber (1978), vol. 2, p. 1118. 106  Op. cit., p. 199. 107  Op. cit., p. 346. Miglio (2011, vol. 2, p. 321) in this case referred to “political rent”. 108  Weber (1978), vol. 1, p. 199. 104 105

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intermingling of public power and the economy. As a consequence, there comes into being a demi-monde which tirelessly works to grasp any possible opportunity of “political exploitation”. This is made up of people who bond and become close-knit as a result of favours and commercialism. And this is the situation in which ideals are used solely to provide a “cover” for goals which have nothing to do with the services which collective life requires. Beliefs and principles do not provide guidance for action and do not indicate a purpose to pursue; they only work as “pretexts” for actions which are aimed at nurturing and protecting privileged and illicit interests.109 In this way, none of the obligations which rulers are responsible for are performed. Exchange is deprived of one of its legs. The ruled provide their consent. But from those holding public power they do not receive the expected counter-performance: the implementation and protection of the conditions which allow social development. In fact they are damaged; for what occurs is a full-scale form of goal-displacement: free cooperation is impaired, the competitive allocation of resources is sabotaged, the selection of paradigms which make the growth of rationality is prevented and “the circulation of elites” distorted.

4.7   The Intermingling of Politics and the Economy: “demagogic plutocracy” It occurs that the union of the political and the economic gives rise to “the phenomenon” which goes “under the name of demagogic plutocracy”.110 Pareto wrote: “there is the trouble that industries and banks have too many ties with government and depend on it too much; there is no solid boundary between public and private finance. This is the main origin of the ills which surfaced at the time of Banca Romana, which are re-­occurring today and which will probably re-occur in the future”.111 “From 1859 […] Italian finance has had stormy periods”, from which it has always emerged with “increases in the public debt and taxes, as well as the issue of paper money, followed by [monetary] depreciation”.112 This is how

109  Paraphrasing Merriam (1934, p.  99), one could say that there are groups organised against the political organisation itself or “gangs within the law” (op. cit., p. 97). 110  Pareto (1966), p. 970. 111  Pareto (1974c), vol. 2, p. 700. 112  Op. cit., p. 596.

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crises which “could have been mild, become serious”.113 “In every time and in every country we find demagogic plutocracy having a wide availability of ploys to turn conditions which seem most desperate to its own advantage; it apparently gives way to opposing forces but already having a plan to take back through cunning what it has had to give up”.114 “Sooner or later, force, yes, force, will decide who shall command and who shall obey”.115 The problem is clear. We have already highlighted it from the very first pages of this chapter. Pareto’s experience was the same which was felt dramatically by Antonio De Viti de Marco, who did not however make any concessions to the use of force. On the contrary, he wrote: “The men who should have formed the third party, made corrupt by their long use of unchallenged power, have split into groups and sub-groups, each led by a captain of fortune. These were the men – produced by a long process of reverse selection – who have governed Italy”.116 And further: “Some of the least resigned or most violent stir up public opinion with the dream of a dictatorship somewhere between civilian and military, forgetting that our fathers fought bloody and centuries-long battles against dictatorships and that if we, in a moment of discouragement, ill-feeling or weakness to fight, were to return to dictatorship, we would tie future generations to the burden of having to recommence that fight”.117 The fact is that the degenerative phenomena produced by the intermingling of the political and the economic are a consequence of the restriction of the area of voluntary exchange. This means that the intervention of force does not eliminate those phenomena. It creates the conditions for them to multiply, because it marginalises (or eliminates) free social cooperation. Pareto dreamt of a socialism which had reached “a stage of free competition”.118 And, fully in line with that, he deluded himself that phenomena determined by political interference in the economy might be eliminated through force, the superlative of politics, which is also the superlative of interventionism. But the consonance between these two aspects of his theory does not erase the obvious leap of logic between diagnosis and proposed solution. If any interference produces  Op. cit., p. 707.  Pareto (1966), p. 998. 115  Ibid., p. 999. 116  De Viti de Marco (1920), p. 151. 117  De Viti de Marco (1922), p. 461. 118  See note 14 in this chapter. 113 114

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unacceptable consequences, general interventionism can only lead those outcomes to an extreme. There is more to it. Pareto knew that “consent and force appear in all the course of history as instruments of governing”: “They come forward in the legendary days of Iliad and Odyssey to make the power of the Greek kings secure. They are discernible in the legends of the Roman kings. Later on, in historical times, in Rome they are busy under both Republic and Empire; and it is by no means to be taken for granted that the government of Augustus enjoyed any less support in the subject class than the various governments of the last years of the Republic managed to secure. An so coming on through the Barbaric kings and the mediaeval republics down to the divine right potentates of two or three centuries ago, and finally in our modern democratic régimes, we find all long the same mixture of force and consent”.119 Pareto should therefore have understood that “if every group that believes itself capable of imposing its rule on the rest is to be entitled to undertake the attempt, we must be prepared for an uninterrupted series of civil wars”.120 And he should have also accounted for the function performed by law in marking out the boundaries between rulers and ruled and between intersubjective actions. And yet, as we have already pointed out, what is missing in his work is precisely the idea of “regulation of conflict”, individual choice, protected and “channelled” by law. Pareto wrote: “Strong governments have stable systems, which change after carefully-weighed and mature consideration; weak governments, types of which in the past were the government of the decadence of the Roman Empire and Byzantium, have laws which are as numerous as they are changeable, made to address particular cases, which are changed and changed again depending on the turn of events. This is how the work of the Italian government currently appears, and in considering it as a whole, it would seem that every morning, when he wakes up, one of our ministers asks himself: ‘Which decree-laws shall I issue today?’ […]. They give the excuse that this is what necessity dictates, but that it is a false excuse is proven by the fact that stronger governments, or if one prefers, less weak ones, such as the British and the French, get by without decree-laws”.121  Pareto (1935), vol. 4, p. 1572, section 2251.  I am here making use of statements presented, in a broader context, by Mises (1985, p. 44). 121  Pareto (1966), p. 1111. 119 120

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Consequently, Pareto was aware of the effects produced by legislation. But the decisive thing in his view was the opposition between “strong governments” and “weak governments”. And this is not the point: because it is not “strong governments” which endow the law with certainty and allow free social cooperation.122 The real alternative is between “rule of men” and “rule of law”, between utility of actions and utility of rules. Machiavellianism oscillates constantly between deception and force. It moves upon itself, that is. And in this way it remains locked up inside the “rule of men” and the utility of actions. It never enters the territory of the “rule of law” and the utility of rules. With the means indicated by Pareto it is not possible to remedy the disastrous medium and long-term consequences which Pareto himself deplored.123 As we have already seen, it is typical of the adventurer to perform his “deeds” in the present without any regard to what may happen later or hoping he will not need to come to terms with the consequences of his actions.124 Adventurers who hold public power are facilitated by the fact that the ruled always judge on the basis of promises or ideological or, in any case, insufficient data, which are generally collected in a limited timeframe. There is no use in moving from deception to force. Hume (we have already pointed this out in the previous chapter) was unambiguous in stating that, even admitting that it qualifies as one, a “single act of justice is frequently contrary to public interest; and were it to stand alone, without being followed by other acts, may, in itself, be very prejudicial to society”.125 The utility of individual actions always allows of exceptions. And that is a permanent violation of the isonomic condition. The political and the economic coalesce. And this is what the adventurer is looking for. But it is also what Aristotle had already feared; and it was gave most concern to the exponents of the Whig tradition. If normative production is made to  Mises (1969), pp. 7–11.  Pareto (1974c, vol. 2, p. 709) wrote: “The government then intervened rapidly; driven by political or also parliamentary interests, it prepared to dispel these troubles, without giving a thought as to whether this would lead to other greater or more lasting troubles”. 124  In describing the adventurer, Ferrero (1947, p. 35) presented a profile which is not far removed from the one sketched out by Simmel and Weber: “few scruples, no vision and no concern for the future, for remote consequences: the only concern is immediate success”. It is useful to recall that Pareto did not have a good opinion of Ferrero. In a letter to Maffeo Pantaleoni, he wrote that Ferrero’s writings “are all novels” (Pareto 1960, vol. 2, p. 61). More careful attention would however have suggested a very different judgement. 125  See Chap. 3, note 212. 122 123

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c­ oincide with legislation, it cannot avoid being directed to privileging the prevailing interest groups. And parliament becomes a kind of “clearing house” for these same groups.126 The path to follow then is that of the “rule of law” and the utility of rules. What is needed are general and abstract norms. This is the legal habitat which prevents public power from distributing resources and charging the collectivity for the favours it bestows upon itself, its own personnel and the groups it is connected with.127 As we already know, the “rule of law” makes competition possible. Selection does not occur on the basis of the self-referential decisions of the holders of public power, but in accordance with the intercourse allowed by the isonomic condition. This is the normative context which guarantees the autonomy of social processes and makes it possible to benefit from all the medium-term and long-term outcomes generated by extensive cooperation.128 The “rule of men” and the utility of acts produce variability in decisions, prevent an enlarged social process and the mobilisation of dispersed knowledge from occurring and totally neglect medium- and long-term consequences. The solution of the problem is not to be found in force.129

126  Mises (1985, p. 170) rightly wrote that this is often presented as the “crisis of parliamentarianism”, whereas in actual fact it is the result of the intermingling of politics and the economy. Cf. also Mises (1978), pp. 89–90. On the problem of the prevalence of legislative output, see the classic works by Hayek (1960 1982) and Leoni (1991). 127  The intermingling of politics and the economy makes it possible to use the resources of other people, the tax-payers, to extend the power of rulers and the groups connected to them. It is always possible to find a noble social justification for this. Pareto was very critical of “bail outs”, or measures taken to keep alive companies which were incapable of staying in the market. He knew well that the resources used in such initiatives mean a genuine destruction of capital. It appears that problems are solved, but they are aggravated because of the fact that those resources are subtracted from initiatives which are capable of surviving the test bench of competition. Following Thoreau, Friedman (1972) wrote that there is nothing easier and more pernicious than doing good at the expense of others. 128  It is no coincidence that Hayek (1949, p. 20) stated that the liberal policy is “a long-run policy”. 129  Pareto (1893, pp. 3–28) identified the issuing of paper money as one of the instruments of political adventurism. He devoted a lot of attention to the events of the Banca Romana. And he took as an “example which is far from the present and therefore in part unaffected by emotions” the case of John Law (Pareto 1974c, vol. 2, p.  707). We shall deal with the “power to issue money” in the next chapter.

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Appendix: Lasswell in the Trap of Psychologism Psychologism was damaging for Pareto. And it has also damaged the study of economic, social and political phenomena. To make this even clearer we shall consider the writings of Harold D. Lasswell, who produced a very extensive body of work on which a number of influences converged. While he was still at high school, he came into contact with the works of Marx and Freud. He later studied at the University of Chicago, which at the time counted Robert E. Park, Charles E. Merriam and George H. Mead as members of its staff. Later he was able to spend a number of periods of study in Europe, where he studied the Italian elitists. In the light of the approach we have so far taken, it is particularly useful to focus on Park, who was director of the Department of Sociology which had been founded by Albion W. Small. Both of these authors had done a great deal to introduce Simmel to the United States. Small had translated and published a number of the German thinker’s texts in the “American Journal of Sociology”.130 And Park had been to Berlin, in the 1899–1900 winter semester, where he had attended Simmel’s lectures: that had been “his only formal instruction in sociology – instruction that influenced him and the course of American sociology deeply”.131 In 1921, in cooperation with Ernest Burgess, Park had collected a number of sociological texts for the use of his students: a selection in which there was a clear prevalence of Simmel’s writings.132 The “frame of reference used to organize the readings was largely Simmelian in conception. Park’s impression of Simmel became part of local lore for generations of Chicago graduate students”.133 When he sent off World Politics and Personal Insecurity for printing in November 1934, Lasswell wrote of Park: “it is possible, without binding him to the enterprise, to record my long standing indebtedness to his sagacious insight and my appreciation of his respect for creative interplay between hours of high abstraction and days of patient contact with

130  Among the texts translated by Small, there are also the chapters which, in his Soziologie, Simmel devoted to the treatment of power and conflict. 131  Hughes (1964), p. 18. 132  The text (Park and Burgess 1921) contains ten pieces by Simmel, two by Durkheim, Hobhouse and Spencer, three by Le Bon and none by Weber. 133  Levine (1971), p. LI.

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humble detail”.134 In Power and Society too, a book written later in cooperation with Abraham Kaplan, Park remained one of his references.135 The cultural context which allowed the shaping of Lasswell’s views was therefore not foreign to Simmel’s analysis and, in any case, provided the elements for a wide-ranging analysis of the social process and the relations of superordination and subordination which it produces.136 Lasswell stated that “central throughout are persons and their acts, not ‘government’ and ‘states’. Terms like ‘state’, ‘government’, ‘law’, ‘power’ – all the traditional vocabulary of political science – are words of ambiguous reference until it is clear how they are to be used in describing what people say and do”.137 And from here Lasswell reached a broad definition of political science, which “is concerned with power in general, with all the forms in which it occurs”138: since “failure to recognize that power may rest on various bases, each with a varying scope, has confused and distorted the conception of power itself, and retarded inquiry into the conditions and consequences of its exercise in various ways”.139 Therefore, power is not only what is held by those who have a prominent position inside the state organisation. Nay, political power “is a complex form which presupposes always other forms of power, and though of course it differs from these others in characteristic ways, it has much in common with them”.140 Consequently, the “power of the state cannot be  Lasswell (1935), pp. V-VI.  Lasswell, Kaplan (1950), p. 286. 136  Stoppino (1975, p. XVIII) wrote that the “materials” available to Lasswell made it possible for him to present “a political analysis, not in the narrower and trivial sense, but in the broader and significant sense, where the political is everything which has significant consequences on the general distribution of power among individuals and groups in society, and therefore on the general distribution of social values, or the things, that is, which men desire”. 137  Lasswell, Kaplan (1950), p. 3. 138  Op. cit., p. 85. 139  Ibid. Lasswell reinforced his statement with a reference to Tawney (1931, pp. 228–9): “The discussion of the problem which power presents has been prejudiced […] by the concentration of interest upon certain of its manifestation to the exclusion of others […]. A realistic treatment of it has suffered, in particular, from the habit of considering it primarily, or even purely, in political terms. Power is identified with political power, and political power is treated as a category by itself”. Lasswell (op. cit., p. 93) also referred to Russell (1938, pp. 13–4): “power has many forms, such as wealth, armaments, civil authority, influence on opinion. No one of these can be regarded as subordinate to any other, and there is no one form from which the others are derivative”. 140  Lasswell, Kaplan (1950), p. 85. 134 135

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understood in abstraction from the forms of power manifested in various types of interpersonal relations”.141 So, “speaking of power and the powerful is an ellipsis, leaving out what is perhaps the longest arc of the circle constituting a power relation”, which “is an interpersonal situation; those who hold power are empowered. They depend upon and continue only so long as there is a continuing stream of empowering responses. Even a casual inspection of human relations will convince any competent observer that power is not a brick that can be lugged from place to place, but a process that vanishes when the supporting responses cease”.142 One must accordingly “recognize as power whatever relationships involve expectation of severe deprivations”143; and it is even necessary to include friendships among these relationships, since they comprehend the possibility of the loss of affection, which takes on the shape of a sanction.144 Lasswell stated that he had been inspired by the pattern which occurs with exchange.145 This because subjects are involved in a “continuing spiral of interaction”,146 based on a web of expectations. And yet, when one considers things carefully, he understands that his reference to exchange is only formal, because deprivations need to be “severe”; and, in order to determine their severity, it is necessary to base oneself on the interpretation of a “considerable number of those in the community who acquainted with such circumstances”.147 This reminds one of what Pareto wrote in reference to “logical actions”, which are such “not only from the standpoint of the subject performing them, but from the standpoint of others persons who have a more extensive knowledge”.148 Therefore the evaluation is not only up to the actors involved. This means that we cannot say we are inside the realm of the theory of exchange, which requires that evaluations be exclusively in the hands of the parties directly involved. Despite making use of good assumptions, Lasswell’s theory undergoes a continual drift, which refutes his premises. This is immediately visible when one reads that the statement according to which men seek power “is  Ibid.  Lasswell (1948), p. 10. 143  Op. cit., p. 13. 144  Op. cit., p. 18. 145  Lasswell, Kaplan (1950), p. 80. 146  Lasswell (1948), p. 10. 147  Op. cit., p. 13. 148  See note 28 in this chapter. 141 142

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a statement we can accept as true in every society where power exists”.149 But the fact is that there are no societies in which power does not exist. Furthermore, as we have stressed from the very first pages, society and power are an inseparable pairing. There is no social relationship in which different degrees of freedom do not interact. This is why, unlike Lasswell claims, there is no need for a voluntary “politicisation” of social relations. Whether we like it or not, each social relationship carries with it a political element. It is not true, therefore, that “any human situation can be converted into a power relation” and that “this can be done if a participant demands certain conduct and ‘thinks he can get away with it’ by threatening or actually inflicting severe deprivation on anyone who deviates”150: at the very moment in which the interaction occurs, the degrees of freedom and the constraints of the actors involved determine positions of superordination and subordination. In other words, we are already inside a relationship of power. Obviously there are actors who are particularly directed towards to securing degrees of freedom. But their intentions do not ensure them any acquisition. If we remain inside the rule of law (and “socially regulated exchange”), intentions can only connotate the way in which power is exercised.151 No more than that. To go further, it is necessary to enter into the area of adventure. And this is the “destination” towards which Lasswell’s analysis inexorably moves. His continual emphasis on “severe deprivations” shows that Lasswell had his permanent point of reference in public power. It is no accident that he referred to those sanctions. And he configured homo politicus as he who “displaces his private motives upon public objects, and rationalizes the displacement in terms of public advantage”.152 But Lasswell should have first of all explained that everyone must always transfer their private 149  Lasswell (1948), p.  16. Notwithstanding this, Lasswell (op. cit., p.  160) also wrote: “what the infant-child does initially is too treat every discomfort as a provocation for every form of expression at his command. It is not too far fetched to say that everyone is born a politician”. Here, alongside a rebuttal of the idea that there can be societies without power, there is a failure to understand the fact that a child is already inside a social relationship, hence the political character of his responses. 150  Op. cit., p. 16. 151  In fact, moving on a trajectory which is different from the one we have followed here, Stoppino (2001, p. 40) wrote: “to say that intentional social causation is power is not to say that only intentional social causation is power”. 152  Lasswell (1936), p. 411. See also Lasswell (1935), p. 45 and (1948), p. 442.

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motivation onto social objects; for only in this way can they offer something to others and, in exchange, obtain the means to pursue their own ends. And he should have then added that one can channel that motivation towards public objects. By skipping over the first part of that mechanism, he deprived exchange, notwithstanding some momentary and weak oscillation, of one of its legs—what the rulers have to do for the ruled. And there is no value in his declared rejection of the politics of power, understood as “power for the sake of power”.153 His rejection is a mere flatus vocis. This becomes obvious with the adoption of the essentially utilitarian postulate of maximisation of values,154 which opens wide the gates to the “politics of power” itself; something which Lasswell himself fully realised. In fact, he wrote: “The image I refer to is that of the power-­ hungry man, the person wholly absorbed in getting and holding power, utterly ruthless in his insatiable lust to impose his will upon all men”155; and also: “Suppose that we refine this traditional conception into a speculative model of the political man comparable with the economic man of the older economic science”.156 It is true: Lasswell judged the model of homo oeconomicus to be at the same time extreme and inadequate,157 but that did not prevent him from subscribing to it definitively and claiming that political man is “one who demands the maximization of his power in relation to all his values, who expects power to determine power, and who identifies with the others as means of enhancing power position and potential”.158 Obviously, if one introduces the idea of maximisation into the territory of politics in the narrower sense of the term, one inevitably falls captive to “power politics”, which is an action having the purpose of exercising power for power’s sake. A ruler turns into an “adventurer”, who cares nothing about any obligations or medium- and long-term considerations. And yet the motivations of an individual are not enough to make political adventure possible. To think so means to forget that power is a relationship and that adventure itself is an intersubjective relationship. So in order to “assault” the rule of law, the adventurer needs to win people over and 153  Lasswell, Kaplan (1950), p. XXIV, where it is also said that public power “is as limited a standpoint for inquiry as for policy”. 154  Op. cit., pp. 78–80. 155  Lasswell (1948), p. 54. 156  Ibid. 157  Op. cit., pp. 55–8. 158  Lasswell, Kaplan (1950), p. 78.

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make promises which are capable of attracting the consent at least of some social groups. And this is indispensable (even when force is resorted to). Then, once he has reached the point of wielding public power or a part of it, he will “justify” his position with the promises which initiated the relationship. But this will be a mere disguise of his personal aims. And, if one analyses this closely, what are decisive are not the intentions but rather the conditions which provide the political actor’s habitat. Which is tantamount to saying that adventure is a mode in which power is acquired and exercised in a situation where mechanisms of selection have failed to adequately operate and where, for a huge variety of reasons, there is a lack of social control, which is basically always due to insufficient competition. It follows that only if the “rule of law” is in a weak or precarious condition is it possible for the adventurer to carry out his plans. As we know, the notion of homo oeconomicus was generated through a number of serious methodological errors.159 And the fact of borrowing it reveals the high coefficient of psychologism present in Lasswell’s work. Although he always claimed that the science of politics “states conditions”,160 he continually channelled energy into constructing the psychological diagram of homo politicus. And, in order to defend himself from the troubling traits attributed to that figure, he resorted to “goodness”: “the sharing of power and respect in adult life depends, in no small part, on basic character structure”; and also: “This is consistent with part, at least, of William Penn’s famous overstatement: ‘If men be good, government cannot be bad’. Penn was also referring to the interlocking bonds of affection that give strength to social structure”.161

159  As we have pointed out (Chap. 1, note 58), Hayek spoke of homo oeconomicus as the “skeleton in our cupboard”, meaning the cupboard of economists, “exorcised with prayer and fasting”. One should add that, in the pages in which he brought up homo oeconomicus, Lasswell showed no great knowledge in the area of economic theories. He even attributed the paternity of that economic model to Jevons. But that figure (see Chap. 1, section 3) stems from the definition of economy formulated by John Stuart Mill. Cf. in any case Infantino (2008), pp. 69–111. 160  Lasswell (1936), p. 239. 161  Lasswell (1948), p. 150. Lasswell here neglected to take into consideration the input of Merriam (1934, p.  100), who highlighted the fact that damage is not produced by “the inborn viciousness of man”, but from the “inadequacies” of rules. It is strange that, in introducing him to Italy, Stoppino (1975) did not focus on the major flaw this represented in Lasswell. Furthermore, Stoppino never realised that the idea of maximisation produces misleading results in economics, sociology and politics.

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As we well know, “good intentions” are not enough to provide a solution to the problems of collective life. By resorting to them, Lasswell ended up in a blind alley: being “good” does not mean being omniscient or mastering the “relevant data”. Human actions produce proximate consequences and medium- and long-term outcomes. Despite “good intentions”, what happens in the immediate, or apparently occurs in the initial phase, may subsequently generate completely different and harmful effects. One should, if anything, require that individuals play by the rules in their conduct. But this is not the product of “intentions”. It is most of all the result of mechanisms of social orientation, of the actual enforcement of norms and their penalties, within which there is incorporated a knowledge which very often escapes us.162 Lasswell was well aware, having learnt this from George Herbert Mead at least, that each human being must learn from Others to be an I.163 This means that, “if a reduction is to be attempted at all, it would therefore be more hopeful to attempt a reduction or interpretation of psychology in terms of sociology than the other way round”.164 Accordingly, what is significant is the context in which each interacts and the social process which derives from it. Napoleon Bonaparte remarked: “Vanity made the revolution: liberty was only a pretext”. Discussing “civil heroism” and vanity as well, Ortega y Gasset rightly wrote: “I am not denying that they are both ingredients of revolutions. But in all the great eras of history there is an abundance of both heroism and vanity, without any subversion erupting. In order for both these powers […] to forge a revolution they need to operate within” a specific context165; meaning that they need to meet the social conditions which make their deployment possible.166 162  See Merton (1968, p. 120). Hayek repeatedly drew attention to the knowledge incorporated in social norms. On this issue, his main points of reference were the Scottish moralists and Burke. In his last work, Hayek (1988, p. 157) also referred to Frazer (1909). 163  Cf. Mead (1934) and Lasswell (1936), pp. 374–375. 164  Popper (1966), p. 93. 165  Ortega (1923), p. 215. 166  Ortega (1930, p. 180) also argued “we are what our world invites us to be”. In other words: “men with the most diverse psychologies encounter a certain common and inescapable repertory of problems which endows their existences with an identical basic structure. Psychological differences […] are secondary and only introduce insignificant perforations in the outline of the common drama […]. It is time for history to abandon psychologism […]. Each of us is immersed in a system of problems, dangers, facilities, difficulties, possibilities and impossibilities which are not part of us but are part of the world which we inhabit, which we must come to terms with, which we need to deal and struggle with and which our lives

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The cultural context in which he was trained should have allowed Lasswell to make use of the theory of exchange. And, if he had taken that route, he would have subscribed to the view that sees the raison d’être of social science in the identification of the conditions which make a given event or phenomenon possible or impossible. In other words: whatever the actors’ intentions, the social sciences need to address the (positive or negative) unintended consequences associated with that interaction. From which there ensues the attempt to establish norms which, independently of the intentions of the subject, prevent him from causing harm to his neighbour. Thus configured, the social sciences shed a powerful light on the territory of (voluntary) social cooperation. They highlight the differing degrees of freedom actors benefit from. And, in the attempt of one party to avoid their performance, they identify an amputation of the exchange: the use of a social “justification” for ends which are exclusively personal. But Lasswell embraced a different route: the one suggested by the notion of homo oeconomicus and the short-term maximisation of advantages. It is a theory which prevents exchange from being observed and which conceals the great reality of social exchange. It unrealistically focuses on an actor who knows the “relevant data”, who does not have to undergo the “responses” of the other parties involved and who therefore does not need to concern himself with any consequences. This actor is not confronted by a problem in which the utility of rules can be of help to him. What counts is the utility of a single act. And he can maximise: because the situation denies him nothing. It only asks him to apply himself to an exercise in pure logic.167 This kind of approach says very little about the economy, social cooperation and politics.

References Alberoni F. (1977) Movimento e istituzione, Bologna: Il Mulino. Arendt H. (1969) On Violence, New York: Harcourt Brace. Aron R. (1967) Les étapes de la pensée sociologique, Paris: Gallimard. Bobbio N. (1971) Saggi sulla scienza politica in Italia, Torino: Einaudi. Borkenau F. (1936) Pareto, London: Chapman & Hall. necessarily consist of. If we had been born a hundred years ago, even with the same character and the same capabilities, the drama of our lives would have been very different” (Ortega 1933, pp. 26–27). 167  Hayek (1949), p. 47.

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Busino G. (1974) Introduzione to Pareto (1974c). De Viti de Marco A. (1920) “Il terzo partito”, in L’Unità, IX, no. 37, pp. 151–2. De Viti de Marco A. (1922) “Economie o imposte?”, in Problemi italiani, I, vol. 2, pp. 429–62. Durkheim É. (2010) Sociology and Philosophy, Abingdon: Routledge. Engels F. (1975a) “Letters from London”, in Marx-Engels (1975), vol. 3. Engels F. (1975b) “Progress of Social Reform on the Continent”, in Marx-Engels (1975), vol. 3. Ferrero G. (1947) Avventura. Bonaparte in Italia (1796–1797), Milano: Garzanti. Frazer J. (1909) Psyche’s Task, London: Macmillan. Freund J. (1974) Pareto, Paris: Seghers. Friedman M. (1972) An Economist’s Protest: Columns in Political Economy, Glen Ridge: Horton. Gilbert F. (1977) History, Choice and Commitment, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard U.P. Gurvitch G. (1957) Le concept de classes sociales de Marx à nos jours, Paris: CDU. Hayek F.A. (1949) Individualism and Economic Order, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hayek F.A. (1960), The Constitution of Liberty, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hayek F.A. (1982) Law, Legislation and Liberty, London: Routledge Hayek F.A. (1988) The Fatal Conceit, London: Routledge. Hughes E.C. (1964) “Robert Park”, in New Society, 31 Dec., p. 18. Hume D. (1930) A Treatise of Human Nature, London: Dent. Infantino L. (1998), Individualism in Modern Thought. From Adam Smith to Hayek, London: Routledge. Infantino L. (2003) Ignorance and Liberty, London-New York: Routledge. Infantino L. (2008) Individualismo, mercato e storia delle idee, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Infantino L. (2010) “Hayek and the Evolutionary Tradition Against the Homo Oeconomicus”, in Advances in Austrian Economics, vol. 13, pp. 159–77. Kirzner I.M. (1973) Competition and Entrepreneurship, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lasswell H.D. (1935) World Politics and Personal Insecurity, New  York: McGraw-Hill. Lasswell H.D. (1936) Who Gets What, When, How, New York: McGraw-Hill. Lasswell H.D. (1948) Power and Personality, New York: Norton. Lasswell H.D., A. Kaplan (1950) Power and Society, London: Yale U.P. Leoni B. (1991) Freedom and the Law, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Levine D.N. (1971) Introduction to Simmel (1971). Marx K. (1976) Capital, London: Penguin. Marx K. (1984) “On the Jewish Question”, in Marx (1984c). Marx K, Engels F. (1974) The German Ideology, London: Lawrence & Wishart.

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Mayer H. (1937) “Il concetto di equilibrio nella teoria economica”, in G.  Del Vecchio (ed.), Economia pura, Torino: Utet. Mead G.H. (1934) Mind, Self and Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Merriam C.E. (1934) Political Power, London: McGraw-Hill. Merton R.K. (1968) Social Theory and Social Structure, New York: Free Press. Michels R. (1966) La sociologia del partito politico, Bologna: Il Mulino. Miglio G. (2011) Lezioni di politica, Bologna: Il Mulino. Mises L. (1969) Bureaucracy, New Rochelle: Arlington House. Mises L. (1978) In Namen des Staates, Stuttgart, Bonn Aktuell. Mises L. (1981) Epistemological Problems of Economics, New York: New York U.P. Mises L. (1985) Liberalism, San Francisco: Cobden Press. Nietzsche F. (1986) Human, All Too Human, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P. Ortega y Gasset J. (1916), “Ideas sobre Pío Baroja”, in Ortega y Gasset (1946–1983), vol. 2. Ortega y Gasset J. (1923) “El ocaso de las revoluciones”, in Ortega y Gasset (1946–1983), vol. 3. Ortega y Gasset J. (1930) “La rebelion de las masas”, in Ortega y Gasset (1946–1983), vol. 4. Ortega y Gasset J. (1933) “Goethe desde dentro”, in Ortega y Gasset (1946–1983), vol. 4. Ortega y Gasset J. (1935) “Un rasgo de la vida alemana”, in Ortega y Gasset (1946–1983), vol. 5. Pareto V. (1893) “L’intervention de l’état dans le banques d’émission en Italie”, in Journal des Economistes, vol. 14, pp. 138–63. Pareto V. (1935) The Mind and Society: A Treatise of General Sociology, New York: Dover Publications. Pareto V. (1960) Lettere a Maffeo Pantaleoni, Roma: Banca Nazionale del Lavoro. Pareto V., (1966) Scritti sociologici, Torino: Utet. Pareto V. (1971) Corso di economia politica, Torino: Utet. Pareto V. (1974a) Manuale di economia politica, Padova: Cedam. Pareto V. (1974b) I sistemi socialisti, Torino: Utet. Pareto V. (1974c) Scritti politici, Torino: Utet. Park R.E., Burgess E.W. (1921) Introduction to the Science of Sociology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Parsons T. (1949) The Structure of Social Action, Glencoe: Free Press. Perelman C., Olbrechts-Tyteca L. (1976) Traité de la’argumentation, Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Perrin G. (1971) Sociologie de Pareto, Paris: PUF. Pizzorno A. (1989), “Sistema sociale e classe politica”, in Storia delle idee politiche, economiche e sociali, vol. 6, Torino: Utet. Popper K.R. (1966) The Open Society and Its Enemies, London: Routledge.

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Ricossa S. (1988) “Sugli abusi del razionalismo nell’economia politica”, in Rivista di Politica Economica, vol. 78, pp. 7–14. Rousseau J.-J. (1974) Emile, London: Dent. Rousseau J.-J. (1997) “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men”, in Rousseau (1997c). Russell B. (1938) Power. A New Social Analysis, London: Allen & Unwin. Schumpeter J.A. (1949) “Vilfredo Pareto”, in Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 63, pp. 147–73. Schumpeter J.A. (1997) History of Economic Analysis, London: Routledge. Simmel G. (1908) Soziologie, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. Simmel G. (1919) Philosophische Kultur, Leipzig: Kröner. Sorokin P. (1942) Man and Society in Calamity, New York: Dutton. Stoppino (1975) Introduzione to H.D.  Lasswell, Potere, politica e personalità, Torino: Utet. Stoppino (2001) Potere e teoria politica, Milano: Giuffrè. Tawney R.H. (1931) Equality, London: Allen & Unwin. Valade B. (1990) Pareto. La naissance d’une autre sociologie, Paris: PUF. Weber M. (1922) “Die Grenznutzlehre und das psychophysiche Grundgesets”, in Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Wissenschaftslehre, Tübingen: Mohr. Weber M. (1946) Essays in Sociology, New York: Oxford U.P. Weber M. (1950) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New  York: Scribner; London: Allen & Unwin. Weber M. (1978) Economy and Society, New York: Bedminster Press.

CHAPTER 5

Voluntary Cooperation and Unlimited Democracy

5.1   Exchange Versus Homo Oeconomicus We come to our conclusions with the same author with whom we opened Chap. 1. Georg Simmel wrote: “The extension of human spheres of power in a variety of dimensions, which belies […] the statement that […] the satisfaction of needs is tied to theft of whatever sort, could be termed the substantive progress of culture”.1 Simmel himself added: “Alongside this, there is what might be termed the functional progress. The concern here is with finding the appropriate forms that make it advantageous for both parties to exchange ownership of specific objects. Such a form can originally have been attained only if the first owner had the physical power to keep the object wanted by others until he was offered a corresponding advantage, because otherwise the object would simply have been taken away from him. Robbery, and perhaps the gift, appear to be the most primitive stages of change in ownership, the advantage lying completely on one side and the burden falling completely on the other. When the stage of the exchange appear as the form of change in ownership […], then this would be evidence of the greatest progress that mankind could have made”.2

1 2

 Simmel (1978), p. 290.  Ibid.

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Therefore, exchange is the most highly civilized response to the “human tragedy” of the condition of scarcity.3 It is a “peace treaty” which, as such, bans the use of force and grants everyone the freedom to turn down the offers of others and freely choose their own counterpart.4 In other words, the demarcation of the boundaries between actions, performed by the law, makes cooperation voluntary and places us before a competitive plurality of actors both offering and asking. The political dimension and conflict do not disappear: they are not suppressible because scarcity is not suppressible. Nevertheless, infrasocial relations are normatively channelled and lose the “mere one-sidedness of advantage”.5 And this is accompanied by a reversal of the position of public power. It is no longer the independent variable which hierarchizes society at its own pleasure and which arranges the destiny of men without any limitations. It is the complement, albeit indispensable, of (voluntary) social cooperation. Therefore, it owes its legitimation to the consent of the ruled, in relation to whom it stands primarily as a producer of security. And here too the logic of exchange prevails. Citizens give their consent to rulers, who in exchange must provide the services the citizens themselves judge to be necessary to live together in society. Exchange and the institutions it presupposes are the “civilizing influence of culture”.6 This is the goal which was pursued with their theories by Mandeville, Hume, Smith, Constant, Tocqueville and Spencer. And it is the topic to which extensive analysis was devoted by Carl Menger, from whose work Simmel, despite not declaring his debt, derived clear benefit. All these authors, and others we have made use of in previous chapters, gave body to the tradition of cultural evolutionism and methodological individualism. Hasty and heedless commentators fail to separate this tradition from that of homo oeconomicus, which belongs to utilitarianism in the narrower sense. But, as we have stressed from Chap. 1 onwards, these are two very distinct ways of approaching and explaining social phenomena. Through exchange, the individualistic method accounts for a process fuelled by ignorant and fallible individuals, whose acts produce direct and indirect outcomes. On the other hand, homo oeconomicus is an actor who has all the “relevant data” available. And his permanent task is to  Op. cit., p. 291.  “Peace treaty” is an expression of Simmel’s. See Chap. 1, note 63. 5  Simmel (1978), p. 291. 6  Ibid. 3 4

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“maximize” results. This is a consequence which is consistent with the endowment of knowledge attributed to the actor. The basic question, which is that of the ignorance and fallibility of each individual, is thus completely avoided. And this erases the fact that competitive allocation of resources is, “like experimentation in science, first and foremost a discovery procedure [… and] cannot be said of competition any more than of any other sort of experimentation that it leads to a maximization of any measurable results. It merely leads, under favourable conditions, to the use of more skill and knowledge than any other procedure”.7 This means that we compete because we do not have the knowledge we need. And, under these circumstances, we cannot maximize any advantage. We can try to achieve our priority goal, which is to cooperate with the Other, in order to alleviate our condition of scarcity. It follows that what pushes towards cooperation is the improvement of one’s position, which is obviously the target of each contracting party. It is a positive-sum game, which can take place within an extensive range of possibilities.8 Accordingly, the idea of maximisation is misleading. Among other things, it only focuses on the utility of the action. It pays no attention to the social process and its uncertainty. And it grants no citizenship to the unintended outcomes of intentional human actions, which constitute the problem of social sciences.9 One can therefore say that homo oeconomicus

 Hayek (1982), vol. 3, pp. 68–9.  With his “theory of public choice”, Buchanan (1979, p.  273) dealt with “persons as utility-maximizing beings”. But Buchanan (op. cit., pp. 26–27) stated that economists should focus on exchange rather than choice. He suggested (ibid.) using the term “catallactics” (cf. note 15 in this chapter) to refer to economics. And he admitted: “When individuals engage in trade, interests differ. Each individual desires to secure the most favorable terms of trade. However, no one draws from this the conclusion that the separate interests are mutually exclusive and that one must prevail over the other. Shall the ‘will’ of the seller or the buyer prevail in a particular exchange? […]. If it is defined as some maximum advantage from trade, the answer to the question must normally be that neither the ‘will’ of the buyer or the seller prevails, although trade is observed to take place” (Buchanan, Tullock 1999, p. 425). Despite these clarifications and many other fruitful observations, Buchanan’s work remains firmly bound to utilitarianism in the narrower sense. See also note 102 in this chapter. 9  It is significant that Stiglitz (1985, p. 26) wrote that “the Invisible Hand may be invisible, because it simply is not there”. Which is like denying the existence of unintended consequences, that is denying the very reasons of existence of economic theory. Evidently, Stiglitz knows nothing about methodological matters. 7 8

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is incapable of explaining the insuppressible “double entry”, by means of which social life takes place.10 This inability is the result which follows from the elements with which the model is built. And here, in addition to the “conceit” of attributing knowledge of the “relevant data” to the actor, one should also bear something else in mind. John Stuart Mill wrote: “There is […] one large class of social phenomena, in which the immediately determining causes are principally those which act through the desire for wealth; and in which the psychological law mainly concerned is the familiar one, that a greater gain is preferred to a smaller”.11 In other words, economics should only deal with those phenomena produced by the “pursuit of wealth”, making “abstraction of every other human passion or motive”.12 There are two decisive errors in Mill’s position. The first consists in believing that the economic aspect of life is the consequence of a “psychological law”, which coincides with the “desire for wealth”.13 And the 10  As we know, the use of the expression “double entry” in the social context is Ortega y Gasset’s. On the opposition between theory of exchange and the notion of homo oeconomicus, cf. at greater length Infantino (2008, 2010), Fallocco (2012). 11  Mill (1892), pp. 545, italics added. 12  Op. cit., p. 546, but earlier Mill (2007), p. 111. 13  There is a link between Mill’s homo oeconomicus and the “animal spirits”, considered by Keynes (1936, pp. 161–162) as “a spontaneous urge to action”. This psychologism can be opposed by what was pointed out rightly by Simmel (1978, p.  291): “In contrast to the simply taking-away or gift, in which the purely subjective impulse is enjoyed, exchange presupposes […] an objective appraisal, consideration, mutual acknowledgment, a restraint of direct subjective desire […]. Exchange – which to us appears to be something entirely selfevident – is the first, and in its simplicity really wonderful, means for combining justice with changes in ownership. In so far as the receiver is at the same time the giver, the mere onesidedness of advantage that characterizes changes of ownership dominated by a purely impulsive egotism or altruism disappears”. Hayek was aware of the psychologism which runs through Keynes’s work. And it is probably because of this that he wrote: “Every explanation of economic crises must include the assumption that entrepreneurs have committed errors. But the mere fact that entrepreneurs do make errors can hardly be regarded as a sufficient explanation of crises. Erroneous dispositions which lead to losses all around will appear probable only if we can show why entrepreneurs should all simultaneously make mistakes in the same direction. The explanation that this is just due to a kind of psychological infection or that for any other reason most entrepreneurs should commit the same avoidable errors of judgment does not carry much conviction. It seems, however, more likely that they may all be equally misled by following guides or symptoms which as a rule prove reliable” (Hayek 1939, p. 141). Another aspect of the issue is highlighted by the statements made by Keynes (1924, p. 110), that the “long run is a misleading guide to current affairs”, because “in the long run we are all dead”. Which is tantamount to saying that one should not concern oneself

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s­ econd error, which derives from the first, is represented by the statement that it is possible to “isolate” economic actions from every other kind of action. But the first statement is false, and the attempt it impels us towards is impossible. As we know, the economic dimension of action does not derive from a “psychological law”, but from the human condition, which is a condition of scarcity. The economic element is present in all of our actions: even if we were not to economise our material resources, we would in any case need to economise our time (in consideration of the fact that our life spans are clearly limited). Consequently, within each of our actions, there is an economic element. But there are no exclusively economic actions because even those parts of actions whose sole purpose is the procurement of means (which are intermediate actions) have their own social dimension, due to the cooperation we ask of others in order to bring them to fruition; and they have a political dimension, linked to the different degrees of freedom of the actors involved. Methodological individualism and the theory of exchange connected with it highlight all three of these interconnected aspects of action. And they thus show that the accumulation of means becomes socially pathological only when it constitutes an adventure, that is when it is carried out to the detriment of the rules of exchange. The theory of homo oeconomicus is unable to explain all this. In fact, with its theory of “desire for wealth” and maximisation, it fosters the conviction that acting under the economic constraint means embodying the imperative of achieving a unilateral advantage. As a result, it is no surprise that, when transferred into the political field as narrowly understood, homo oeconomicus is unable to grasp the service relationship in which public power stands with regard to (voluntary) social cooperation. The fact is that if one places “desire for wealth” as the basis of economic phenomena, one ends up believing that the ultimate goal of certain human actions can be economic. Hence the distinction between economic actions and non-economic actions and, what is worse, the birth of an economic theory which is established as a closed system.14 For the actor (1) is removed from any possible conflict between the accumulation of means and the ends he intends to pursue; (2) remains disconnected from the social and political dimensions of action; and (3) can harbour the with indirect or unintended consequences. Hayek (1941, p.  410) caustically commented: “après nous le déluge”! 14  Infantino (2010), pp. 159–74.

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illusion that, if the “desire for wealth” ceases to exist, the economic dimension of life ceases to exist: because it is made to originate from a certain psychology and not from the human condition. Why should the model of homo oeconomicus be imported into the specifically political territory? It does not explain what is merely economic, and it establishes no relationship between that dimension and the social and political dimensions of life. Why should that model be capable of explaining what is essentially political? First of all, precisely because it neglects the intersubjective relationship, it is incapable of accounting for the political dimension in the broader sense. Can it provide an explanation of politics in the narrower sense? It tells us that, through the use of coercion and by resorting to deception, rulers are exclusively directed towards the accumulation of means. Does it follow that, if the “desire for wealth” disappears, public power also ceases to exist? Does it not perform any service function in respect of social cooperation? The question is that the use of the homo oeconomicus model (a) does not explain the political dimension in the broader sense; (b) does not provide any reason for the existence of public power; and (c) does not help us to identify the conditions, which prevent political activity in the narrower sense from becoming a Machiavellian type of activity. As we well know the theory of exchange stands on another level. (1) It derives the economic dimension from the condition of scarcity. (2) It explains the social dimension with the need for cooperation. (3) It links the political dimension in the broader sense to the various degrees of freedom of actors. (4) It assigns to the State a service function with regard to cooperation. (5) It sees Machiavellianism on the part of public power as an overt violation of the obligations which rulers have to comply with in return for the consent they have been given. Therefore, the homo oeconomicus model and the theory of exchange follow very different routes. The former is based on exclusively psychological assumptions. The latter is a sensitive instrument for the examination of intersubjective relations.15 The former, since it focuses on an individual action, makes it possible to think of the obtainment of a unilateral advantage on the part of the actor. The latter explains that the p ­ ersonal 15  Given the premises underpinning homo oeconomicus, it is no surprise that Mill (1888, vol. 1, pp.  535–6) rejected the suggestion made by Whately (1831, p.  7), who believed that economics was the “science of exchanges” or “catallactics”. Among the supporters of Whately’s proposal were Mises (1966) and Hayek (1982). Although he did not speak of catallactics, Simmel (1978, p. 291) saw man as “the exchanging animal”. Exactly as had been done by Whately. See Infantino (2008), p. 84.

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interest of the actor is not incompatible with the interest of his counterpart: because unilateral advantage always results from breaking the rules which underpin the exchange itself.16

5.2   Power and “social security” In a society based on individual choice, competition does not allow anyone to take up the position of exclusive supplier or exclusive asker. And, when someone makes his degrees of freedom weigh heavily on a counterpart or breaks the rules of exchange, there is always the possibility of turning to others for cooperation. This does not only occur in the field of interindividual relations. It also occurs in the relationship between ruled and rulers, because the acquisition of public power is the result of a competition between individuals or groups of individuals, who contend for the revocable consent of the ruled. And yet, whereas in the area of voluntary cooperation the correspondence between what we ask and what we are offered can to a large extent be ascertained, in the political area in the narrower sense the compliance of rulers with the commitments they have made often escapes direct scrutiny or informed review. The greater the sphere of intervention of public power, the smaller the possibility which the ruled have to form a proper judgement. As we have already seen in Chap. 1, informed review is then replaced by ideological evaluation. And this is where the habitat for “political exploitation” is created: because the judgement of the ruled is not based on what the rulers really do, but on very vague principles, which in any case have deteriorated to the state of “standard phraseology”. In this way, the consequences of government action escape proper scrutiny. And, even when the direct outcomes can be subjected to some form of review, there remains the problem of the indirect consequences, that is the mediumand long-term effects, which are not immediately appraisable and which may be the opposite of what they seem to be initially. There is a time interval between the direct outcomes and the indirect consequences, into which the adventurism of the rulers actively ensconces itself. By invoking 16  Mises (1981a, pp. 357–8) wrote: “there is no contrast between moral duty and selfish interest. What the individual gives to society to preserve it as society, he gives, not for the sake of aims alien to himself, but in his own interest. The individual […] cannot deny society without denying himself”. Which is tantamount to saying that, if the actor breaks the rules of exchange, he may in some cases obtain a unilateral advantage, but he impairs the continuation of the co-operative relationship and his own medium- and long-term interests.

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the “goodness” of the immediate goal, they (1) enlarge their sphere of intervention, that is their power; (2) derive advantage from the authoritative allocation of resources, which favours their interests and those of the groups with which they have political-financial contiguity; (3) prepare for new interventions, which they will emphasise the need for, when indirect outcomes aggravate the issue which was supposed to be solved; (4) evade their responsibility, either by reasoning that the seeming consequences of their action seem to be the just counterpart to the consent obtained or because they have in the meantime left the stage; and (5) in this way, achieve advantages of all kinds, to the detriment of the ruled and of future generations: there is a clear infringement of the rules of exchange. The time interval between immediate consequences and indirect outcomes is therefore the murky cover, behind which rulers extend their interference and self-referentially fulfil interests which collide with the interests of those who have no political “protection”. If this drift is not stopped, what occurs is a reversal of the function performed by public power. When voluntary cooperation prevails, it becomes a complement to individual choices. Interventionism makes it the object of a process of authoritative allocation of resources. And this brings about the “political exploitation” of the ruled, which only benefits the rulers, their contiguous groups and the demi-monde of profiteers which is the unavoidable consequence of any kind of interventionism. Accordingly, interferences on the part of public power give the distribution of social power a different configuration from what would have resulted from the competitive allocation of resources. Degrees of freedom are not obtained by providing prompter or better-quality services to others, but through one’s “proximity” to rulers and by becoming “deserving” of their “favours”. The social distribution of power, to a large extent, becomes a consequence of political decisions in the narrower sense. And since these are implemented with the resources of others, it means that rulers and their “apparatus” are put into a position to do their “worst”.17 There are no moral causes of political decadence, but rather political causes of moral decadence. And this is accompanied, in view of the fact that the territory occupied by free social cooperation is narrowed, by a weakening of the process of exploration of the unknown and correction of errors. Hence also a fall in productivity.

 Hayek (1949), p. 11.

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One can therefore understand why, having the sorry story of mercantilism before it, economics originally began as a study of the failures of the interventionist State.18 And one can understand the reason why no more than a complementary function can be entrusted to public power. In other words, the public apparatus cannot take on the status of independent variable. The tasks assigned to it are to service (and if necessary stand in for) free social cooperation. But they cannot go beyond that. On the strength of his theory of dispersal of knowledge, Adam Smith stated: the “sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interest of society”.19 And he added: “the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain publick works and certain publick institutions, which can never be for the interest on any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect or maintain; because the profit could never repay the expence”.20 Smith probably thought that he had thus provided a rigorous demarcation of the area of intervention of public power. “Production of security” was limited to “the rule of law”. The State also retained responsibility for the provision of so-called public goods, that is those goods and services which private citizens would not have been able to provide or would not 18  Mises (1977, p.  60) wrote: “The […] economists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries demonstrated how competition works in the social order that rests on private property in the means of production. This was an essential part of their critique of the interventionistic policies of mercantilistic police and welfare state. Their investigations revealed how illogical and unsuitable interventionistic measures were. Pressing further they also learned that the economic order that corresponds best to man’s economic goals is that built on private property. Surely the mercantilists wondered how the people would be provided for if government left them alone. The classical liberals answered that the competition of businessmen will supply the markets with economic goods needed by consumers”. 19  Smith (1976), vol. 2, p. 687. 20  Op. cit., pp. 687–688.

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have been able to provide at a profit. The border between public and private appeared to be clearly defined. And yet, in the late nineteenth century, German interventionist culture, with its hostility towards individual choice, already began to make energetic attempts to restore the State to the position of an independent variable: a goal channelled through the demand for “social security”, an expression which prevailed over the perhaps less evocative term (although certainly better able to identify the ends pursued) of “economic security”. Thus, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there originated the notion of the welfare state, a term which translates Wohlfahrtstaat, the “parallel” German concept, advocated by the exponents of the German Historical School of Economics, the so-called socialists of the chair, and which indicates the policy first enacted by Bismarck.21 In Britain, the concept was theorized by the members of the Fabian Society and scholars like Leonard T. Hobhouse and Arthur C. Pigou; and it was used by David Lloyd George and William H. Beveridge. The “acceptance of the term” welfare state “was assisted by the fact that the theoretical foundations that Pigou and his school had provided were known as welfare economics”.22 There is no doubt that it is the demand for economic security which is being invoked. Hobhouse had no hesitation in stating: “A society in which a single honest man of normal capacity is definitely unable to find the means of maintaining himself by useful work is to that extent suffering from malorganization. There is somewhere a defect in the social system, a hitch in the economic machine. Now, the individual workman cannot put the machine straight. He is the last person to have any say in the control of the market. It is not his fault if there is over-production in his industry, or if a new and cheaper process has been introduced which makes his particular skill, perhaps the product of years of application, a drug in the market. He does not direct or regulate industry. He is not responsible for its ups and downs, but he has to pay for them. That is why it is not charity but justice for which he is asking”.23 Pigou himself immediately clarified that the “beginning of economic science” lies in the “social enthusiasm which revolts from the sordidness of mean streets and the joylessness of

 Hayek (1960), p. 502, nota 12.  Ibid. 23  Hobhouse (1946), p. 159. 21 22

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withered lives”.24 And he expressed the conviction that the industrial system deprives “the work people of the liberties and responsibilities proper of free men, and renders them mere tools to be used or dispensed with at the convenience of others”.25 In commenting on Pigou’s positions in the late 1930s, Luigi Einaudi wrote: “Once, in Bismarck’s Germany, Pigou would have been called a socialist of the chair, in the Italy of King Umberto a social reformer. Today he would be a Rooseveltian New Dealer in the United States or a corporativist in Italy”.26 Mauro Fasiani defined Pigou’s main work, The Economics of Welfare, as a “treatise on State intervention”.27 No one can deny that economic security is an “indispensable condition” of individual freedom of choice.28 The “necessity” of measures in favour of those who are “threatened by the extremes of indigence” is “unquestioned”.29 “The assurance of a certain minimum income for  Pigou (1920), p. 5.  Op. cit., pp. 16–7. 26  Einaudi (1939), p. 2. 27  Fasiani (1968), p. X. Pigou’s work appeared in its first edition in 1912, with the title Wealth and Welfare. From the second edition onwards (1920, 1924, 1928, 1932), the author changed the title to The Economics of Welfare. It is worthwhile recalling that Pigou was the successor to Alfred Marshall, who dreamt of “a world in which all men were perfectly virtuous”, where competition would be “out of place” and also “private property and every form of private right”. In such a world, men would have thought “only of their duties”; and no one would have desired to have “a larger share of comforts and luxuries of life than his neighbours” (Marshall 1907, p.  9). It should also be noted that John Stuart Mill (1976, p.  209) had already stated: “not believing in universal selfishness, I have no difficulty in admitting that Communism would even now be practicable among the élite of mankind, and may become so among the rest”. And he also added: “knowledge, to be most useful, must be centralized; there must be somewhere a focus at which all its scattered rays are collected, that the broken and coloured lights which exist elsewhere may find there what is necessary to complete and purify them” (op. cit., p. 357). The positions of Mill, Marshall and Pigou are the consequence of the input of utilitarianism in the narrower sense. There exists relevant knowledge to do everything or, in any case, it is perfectly supposable that this could be attained. It is finally useful pointing out that, even though rather late, Pigou (1954) cast doubts on what he had asserted in his youth. This is why Hayek (1967, p. 264) wrote: “at the end of a long life devoted almost entirely to the task of defining the conditions in which government interference might be used to improve upon the results of the market, [Pigou] had to concede that the practical value of these theoretical considerations was somewhat doubtful, because we are rarely in a position to ascertain whether the particular circumstances to which the theory refers exist in fact in any given situation”. 28  Hayek (1972), p. 119. 29  Hayek (1960), p. 285. 24 25

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everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society”.30 And also: “A system which relies on the spontaneous ordering forces of the market […] is […] by no means incompatible with government providing, outside the market, some security”.31 What is the point? “It is essential that we become clearly aware of the line that separates a state of affairs in which the community accepts the duty of preventing destitution and of providing a minimum level of welfare from that in which it assumes the power to determine the ‘just’ position of everybody and allocates to each what it thinks he deserves”.32 This is the problem which, with a certain leniency towards the Webbs, Barbara Wooton raised with the following questions: “The future design of the social services waits upon some clearer decision as to what these services are supposed to be for […], are they intended to contribute to a policy of social equality? Or are they just part of the National minimum programme enunciated in the earlier works of the Webbs  – measures to secure that nobody starves, or is too poor to see a doctor, or lacks a rudimentary education?”33 If one chooses the first route, one inevitably ends up, as Tocqueville and Senior had already understood, with a socialist-type system.34 One must therefore take the second route: provide social security “outside the market”. One must, that is, avoid interfering directly with the competitive allocation of resources. For it is “easy to protect a particular person or group against the loss which might be caused by an unforeseen change”, but this does not prevent change: it is simply made to weigh on the shoulders of others.35 “If, e.g., capital invested in very expensive plant is protected against obsolescence by new inventions by prohibiting the  Hayek (1982), vol. 3, p. 55.  Op. cit., vol. 2, p. 136. Nassau W. Senior, a great exponent of the Whig tradition, had already in 1848 written: “to proclaim that no man, whatever his vices or even his crimes, shall die of hunger or cold – is a promise that in the state of civilization of England, or of France can be performed not merely with safety but with advantage”. Quoted by Robbins (1965, p. 140), who held the same position (op. cit., pp. 55–61). 32  Hayek (1960), p. 289. 33  Wootton (1953), p. 65. 34  Tocqueville (1848), p. 2418. For Senior, whose statements were inspired by Tocqueville, see Robbins (1965), p. 139. De Viti de Marco (1939, p. 160) had clearly understood that in such a case the “the problems of distribution prevail over those of production”. 35  Hayek (1949), p. 21, note 21. 30 31

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introduction of such new inventions, this increases the security of the owners of the existing plant but deprives the public of the benefit of the new inventions”.36 Which means that we do not reduce uncertainty. We limit ourselves exclusively to privileging some groups to the detriment of others; and the latter see their insecurity increase: because “if you guarantee to some a fixed part of a variable cake, the share left to the rest is bound to fluctuate proportionally more than the size of the whole”.37 This determines a loss in the overall security produced by the “great variety of opportunities” generated by competition.38 And this is all accompanied by the intermingling of rulers and protected groups, the rise of an indispensable demi-monde, the proliferation of legislative provisions which break up the isonomic condition and the sovereignty of law, the violation of the rules of exchange, the deception of a significant portion of the ruled and the authoritative distortion of the social distribution of power. This is why Hayek wrote that there is no “worse and more cruel exploitation” than the one made possible “by the ‘regulation’ of competition”.39 And this is not all. The possibility of obtaining “protection” and “favours” on the part of public power fuels an unlimited demand. This is because, if cost in material terms is equal to zero and time employed obtains a high remuneration, then demand acquires practically infinite value. It is true that the requesting parties have to share the advantages of interventions made with the political class providing them. But cost in material terms does not affect any of the beneficiaries. It is shouldered by those who remain outside the transaction, which obviously provides a “justification” for other subsequent requesting parties. In this way, a race to acquire “protection” and “favours” is triggered, which is a “struggle for power” carried out by organized interests: “social security” is merely a pretext.40 In reaction to the benefits obtained by some, others set out to achieve even greater advantages for themselves. And, when a large part of society is caught up in such a process, a dense web of connivance stifles any fair competition, socializes the new generations within the interventionist creed and co-opts them on the basis of the principle of “conformity”.41 A  Ibid.  Hayek (1972), p. 128. 38  Ibid. 39  Op. cit., p. 129. 40  Hayek (1982), vol. 2, p. 137. 41  Brennan and Buchanan (2000b, p.  68) rightly wrote that here too a Gresham’s law applies on the social level: “bad behavior drives out good”. See also Wieser (1926). 36 37

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swamp of profiteering of such a kind is capable of “absorbing” any weak internal challenges, because the ideology of public intervention embraces most of society as a common denominator.42 A re-awakening from such a “dogmatic sleep” can only occur in the long term, as a consequence of international competition and challenges originating from the outside world. It is therefore necessary for social security to be provided outside the market and that no obstacles be erected against individual freedom of choice.43 But here too there are difficulties: because security is “a play ball for vote-catching demagogues”44; and it becomes an instrument to extend bureaucratic power.45 Which means that even assistance provided to those who are in the most unfavourable situations can, in the hands of the political and administrative class, turn into something quite different. Obviously, ensuring a “minimum for all those who cannot maintain themselves” already implies some kind of redistribution of income.46 This would not create any problems if the goal achieved were limited to the one declared. But things immediately become more complicated. In the hands of rulers, the goal becomes a pretext to enlarge the sphere of intervention of public power. There is always a demand for financial support. And rulers have every advantage in accepting it, because they place themselves at the centre of an extensive redistributive process, which is implemented with the resources of others. The original goal of ensuring “a uniform minimum to all those who cannot provide for themselves” is thus transformed into a generalised “instrument of income redistribution” and political exploitation.47 Public power takes on the status of an independent variable in the system. If “certain services become the exclusive domain of the state, and whole professions […] come to exist only as bureaucratic

42  This occurs because the information based on which citizens have to decide is provided by the same people who derive advantage from the interventionist ideology. See Hayek (1960), p. 293. 43  Hayek (1982), vol. 1, p. 144. 44  Hayek (1960), p. 296. 45  Buchanan and Wagner (2000, p. 73) have rightly written that, “to justify its continued existence, the particular bureaucracy of each spending program must increase the apparent ‘needs’ for the services it supplies”. And this constitutes the innermost logic of every bureaucratic apparatus. 46  Hayek (1960), p. 303. 47  Ibid.

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hierarchies, it will no longer be competitive experimentation but solely the decisions of authority that will determine what men shall get”.48 As we already know, all this causes serious consequences for individual freedom of choice, the exchange between ruled and rulers and economic and social development. Moreover, an interventionist-welfare regime ends up impinging on the deepest layers of individual personality. Tocqueville was the thinker who was the quickest to realize this and who understood it best: “After having […] taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd”.49 In this way, “above this race of men, stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresee and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritance: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?”50 It is therefore necessary to restrict the cases in which public power should intervene. Extending free services to every citizen means that, in seeking to cure certain “social evils”, we suffer the consequences of the  Op. cit., p. 261.  Tocqueville (1994), p. 319. 50  Op. cit., p. 318. 48 49

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“remedies” adopted.51 These consequences are ruinous for individual freedom of choice and the scrutiny of rulers on the part of the ruled. If one wants the role of the State to be exclusively complementary, the “minimum” has to be provided “only on proof of need”.52 Under every other circumstance, everyone should benefit from what they have paid through “personal contribution”, which should not be channelled into a single compulsory model.53 In other words, one must allow individual choice and competition. A plurality of demand must correspond to a plurality of supply: because entrusting things to a monopoly means, in varying degrees, depriving ourselves of the possibility of scrutiny; and this is the surest way to prevent the emergence and the mobilisation of “new knowledge”.54 There is yet another issue which enlarges the sphere of intervention of the State. It relates to public goods, that is those goods the enjoyment of which cannot be prevented, on the part of those who produce or demand them, from those who benefit from them even without paying a price for them. They are therefore goods of joint enjoyment, whose production is entrusted to the “visible hand” of the State. Among the tasks of public power identified by Smith (quoted in this section), these goods would seem to occupy a very narrow area. In addition to defence and justice, Smith referred to “certain publick works and certain publick institutions, which can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect or maintain; because the profit could never repay the expence”. It is specifically the last of these categories which has been enormously expanded. The concept of collective good has thus become “highly dubious”.55 But it has provided public power with many opportunities to enlarge its sphere of intervention and subtract resources from free social cooperation.

 Hayek (1960), pp. 304–5.  Op. cit., p. 303. 53  Ibid. 54  Op. cit., p. 292. 55  Rothbard (1970), vol. 2, p. 884. 51 52

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5.3   The Power of Taxation (and the Power of Issuing Currency) Resources used by state intervention, whatever it is, have a single origin: taxation. Throughout our discussion, we have on many occasions said that the ruled pay for the services provided by public power with their consent.56 There is thus an exchange.57 And consent to rule is most of all the willingness to accept taxation, which is the “best known expression of the power of coaction of the State”.58 Redistribution of resources, which is necessary to any kind of interventionism, would not be possible without the power to levy taxes. And the growth of interference expands the power of taxation. This then makes the exchange “opaque”, that is it restricts the possibility of scrutiny on the part of the ruled. Faced by the maelstrom of interventionism, they are unable to express any informed consent. Hence the inscrutability of the actions of rulers, that “strange interplay of lights and shadows” which fuels what Amilcare Puviani termed the “financial illusion”, one aspect of the broader “political illusion”.59 His socialist inspiration led Puviani to believe that this illusion was enacted by the “ruling economic class”.60 He did not realize that it is an expression of “political exploitation” carried out against free social cooperation. This is why Antonio De Viti de Marco aptly referred to a “cooperative State”, where public power is at the service of the collective life, and a “monopolistic State”, where rulers do not direct their actions exclusively towards satisfying public needs, but rather use the monopoly of coercion they hold for purposes which are alien to their exchange with the ruled.61 This is a distinction which patently reproduces Spencer’s division 56  Brennan and Buchanan (2000a, p. 4) rightly wrote that “government derives its power from the ultimate consent of those who are governed”. 57  De Viti de Marco (1939, p. 21) wrote: “the relationship linking State as producer [of public services] to citizens as consumers is that of exchange, because it cannot be anything else”. De Viti immediately added in an annotation: “despite the evidence, this concept is denied by those who do not like to treat the obligation of paying tax as a counterpart to the right to obtain public services. This recalls, in attenuated form, the times in which taxation was a tribute which the vanquished paid to their victor”. 58  Op. cit., p. 11. 59  Puviani (1973), p. 17 and p. 5. 60  Op. cit., p. 14. 61  On the distinction between “cooperative State” and “monopolistic State”, see De Viti de Marco (1888), pp. 102–104. See also De Viti de Marco (1939), pp. 12–14. For an overall

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between “industrial society” and “militant society”, which is after all the distinction, which has often been made use of here, between (voluntary) social cooperation and coercive cooperation. Thus, the extension of the sphere of intervention of public power leads it to becoming uncontrollable. And this produces financial deception. As we know, Wicksell believed that an individual could achieve a proper evaluation of public expenditure plans simply by basing himself on adequate information and correlating the benefits of the expenditure with its costs in terms of taxation.62 But the ruled do not have the necessary information available to them. And those who enact parliamentary measures do not bear the cost or, in any case, have the possibility of deriving greater benefits from them. Describing one phase of Italian political life following the unification of the country, De Viti de Marco wrote: “The new freedoms […] in practice were used by the newly arrived to organize themselves to defend their own interests […]; but they did not make this defence consist of combating the privileges of others, in order to achieve the equal treatment of all on the basis of a common law, but of claiming new privileges for themselves. Each new privilege was claimed in order to provide equal treatment with an existing privilege. It thus occurred in Italy that progress […] consisted of a gradual and growing extension of legislative favours, moving from groups of old establishment to groups of new establishment, from landowners to industrialists, State officials, labourers cooperatives discussion of De Viti’s work, cf. Cardini (1985). 62  Wicksell (1967, p.  75) wrote: “Can the preference of modern fiscal theorists for the principle of equality (or proportionality) of sacrifice unreservedly be considered a step in the direction of scientific progress? […] With all its clumsiness the theory of Value and Countervalue had at least the virtue of maintaining some sort of contact with the other, the expenditure, side of the public economy. That theory provided something like an upper limit to the concrete amount of taxes by rejecting any public expenditure, along with its companion tax levy, which failed to render each taxpayer a service corresponding to this payment”. Wicksell (op. cit., p. 76) added that the theory of sacrifice “would almost necessarily lead to communism in the worst sense of the word if […] all connections between the distribution of the tax sum and the individual evaluation of the separate state services were to be accepted”. De Viti de Marco (1939, p. 11) himself stated: “The reasons and needs which lead the State to produce public goods are a result of the reasons and needs of individuals and groups which have contributed in practice to the formation of the financial calculation. As a result, theoretical investigation must as far as possible break down financial calculation into the economic calculations of the individuals or groups which are its constituent elements. This is the fundamental principle”. It is a principle which “one cannot say has been commonly accepted by those who like to define the needs and goals of the State in a way which is disconnected from individuals” (ibid., note 1).

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and proletarian organisations. There arose a hierarchy of large, medium and small privileges”.63 Exactly as noted by De Viti de Marco, interventionism is the condition whereby actors are not motivated to act to tear down privileges. Instead, they are motivated to act to obtain their own share of privileges. This induces even those who have least benefits or who are actually disadvantaged by the authoritative distribution of resources to believe that they are parties to an implied pact of connivance, where no one ever has to pay the “price”: and everyone, even though to a varying extent and in varying circumstances, can derive an advantage from an seemingly inexhaustible dynamic.64 It is a process which leads everyone to labour under the illusion that they are free riders, but where the real beneficiaries are the political class, its closest and most protected groups and the demi-monde of profiteers.65 Nobody realizes (or wishes to realize) that, as long as this is the case, the medium- and long-term consequences are disastrous, because the bases of future prosperity are undermined. In this way, people suffer from a “negative delusion”, which prevents them from realizing that interventionist activity prevents unimaginable opportunities for  De Viti de Marco (1994), pp. XLVIII–XVIX.  Since they consider the process to be inexhaustible, the actors feel no responsibility. They focus their attention exclusively on the achievement of their immediate ends. In parliament, this leads to the practice of vote swapping, where each group votes in favour of the proposals of others, in order to achieve the corresponding support they need for their own purposes. This is the practice of so-called logrolling (see Buchanan and Tullock 1999, pp.  99–126; Demsetz 1982, p. 75). In this connection Bentley (1935, pp. 370–1) wrote: “Log-rolling is a term of opprobrium. This is because it is used mainly with reference to its grosser forms. But [… it] is trading. It is adjustment of interests”. Bentley’s comment is only apparently correct. It is true that it is “adjustment of interests”, but the exchange impacts the resources of others. In other words, since they use the resources of others, the actors decide without having to take the condition of scarcity into account. Furthermore, in view of the time interval separating measures from their indirect consequences, the actors themselves evade any responsibility. 65  Einaudi (letter dated 21 June 1959, collected in A. Dalle Molle, ed., 1962, p. 15) wrote: “When the large fact, visible to the naked eye, is the creation on the part of the State of all kinds of monopolies, both public and private, the battle […] is to prevent freebooters from also making private enterprises degenerate from free enterprises to State-subsidised enterprises; in such a way as to legitimize, in the eyes of those incapable of seeing the substance of things, the creation of public enterprises which are equally detrimental, established by freebooters of the same breed and who also live, like the private ones, off the tributes collected from tax payers and consumers. The battle must therefore be fought on two fronts: against state enterprises which are damaging and expensive, and there are very many of them, and against the private enterprises which live off plunder, and there are many of them too”. 63 64

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i­mprovement from being grasped.66 Hayek rightly wrote: “Since the value of freedom rests on the opportunities it provides for unforeseen and unpredictable actions, we will rarely know what we lose through a particular restriction of freedom. Any such restriction, any coercion other than the enforcement of general rules, will aim at the achievement of some foreseeable particular result, but what is prevented by it will usually not be known. The direct effects of any interference […] will be near and clearly visible in most cases, while the more indirect and remote effects will mostly be unknown and will therefore be disregarded. We shall never be aware of all the costs of achieving particular results by such interference”.67 As we can understand, the tacit pact of connivance is obviously a serious obstacle to denouncing the degenerative developments brought about by interventionism. If some succeed in deriving advantages from the types of corruption which accompany interference on the part of public power, others also think they can do the same. The former are not denounced because they provide a model to be followed. Francesco Ferrara aptly stated: “Taxation, in its pure sense, would not be a real sacrifice, or a violence carried out on those who pay it by a greater power; it would instead be the price, and it is a very meagre price, for all the great advantages which are presented to each of us […] by an organized State”.68 But the enlargement of the sphere of state intervention and the consequent impossibility of keeping expenditure under control reverse the situation. This is why Ferrara went on to write: “Do you wish to know why it is that a swarm of parasites or harlots can live in the courts? So that ignorance and intrigue can be borne in triumph there and knowledge and virtue be repulsed and scorned? Why it is that […] a bad minister can make Parliament faithful to his will? Find members of parliament and journalists who cover and defend his faults and failings? Tax encompasses and explains the whole mystery. Tax is the great source of everything a corrupt government can speculate to the damage of peoples; tax keeps the spy, encourages parties and dictates newspaper articles”.69 And this is not the whole story. The power of issuing currency also has an effect on taxation. Because, “even under a zero-inflation regime, the granting to government of a monopoly franchise in the creation of fiat  The expression “negative illusion” is from Puviani (1973), p. 7.  Hayek (1982), vol. 1, pp. 56–7. See also the classic text by Bastiat (2007). 68  Ferrara (1934), vol. 1, p. 551. 69  Ibid., p. 553. 66 67

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money is worth something, because this franchise carries with it the power to create at essentially zero cost an asset upon which individuals place economic value”.70 The first great protagonist of modern “financial demagogy” was John Law, who spent his whole life attempting to achieve the generalized use of paper currency.71 But it only became possible to accomplish this when national states imposed fiat money.72 It was then that rulers acquired a formidable instrument for the redistribution of income and “political exploitation”. In Chap. 1 (Sect. 1.3), by referring to Simmel (and Menger), we highlighted the unplanned nature of money, which was born as a “spontaneous secretion” of voluntary cooperation. But paper currency is something else. It is a product of the coercive power of the State.73 In other words, without coercion it would have no value. Its acceptance is therefore a consequence of forced circulation. And this does not transform it into money. It is a means of payment imposed by public power, which is not fuelled by free acceptance on the part of the social actors.74 It is significant that, in his foreshadowing of the totalitarian State, Plato looked to the prohibition of private possession of gold and silver and suggested the use of a “coin passing current among [… citizens], but not allowed among the rest of mankind”.75 And it was no accident that in Sparta (the system which inspired Plato) were used iron coins, which obviously were not accepted outside the city.76 Transforming money into fiat-money currency is equivalent to preventing individual freedom of choice and the consequent monetary selection

70  Brennan and Buchanan (2000a), p. 131. De Viti de Marco (1939, p. 388, note 1) wrote: “So far the issuing of fiat paper-money was by common consent considered a form of State debt. But in the new economic literature, which flourished in the war and post-war years, even that opinion has been challenged. Some have assimilated the issuing of paper-money to the collection of a ‘levy’ or an ‘indirect tax’ on transfer of property. In the matter of analogies, all are possible, since all are more or less wrong. Levies, special taxes, direct taxes, indirect taxes, special taxes on property and loans are all withdrawals from the national income. Once you go back to the concept of ‘withdrawal’ the distinctions vanish”. 71  Aguirre (1985), p. 26. 72  Ibid. 73  On the statalist theory of money, cf. Knapp (1924), the English translation of which was promoted by J.M. Keynes. 74  For a broad discussion of this, see Aguirre and Infantino (2013). Cf. also Rothbard (1990). 75  Plato (H), 742a. 76  Rostovtzev (1928), vol. 1, p. 211–2.

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generated by voluntary cooperation.77 This is entirely to the advantage of the rulers. Since there is no obligation of (total or partial) convertibility, they can operate without any precise limit. And this opens the door to inflationism, an occurrence which lends itself perfectly to the implementation of interventionist and redistributive programmes. In other words: forced circulation of fiat money is the habitat which allows public power, released from any limitation or control, to fuel a permanent imbalance between the supply and demand of currency.78 The sequential character of the inflationary process provides an advantage to those who make first use of the increased liquidity and, in any case, major debtors, that is the State and those who can benefit most from the “political” distribution of bank credit.79 The interest rate, which is a real phenomenon, produced by the intertemporal preferences of actors, is subjected to permanent manipulation. It turns into a political variable, an entity which is affected by the overabundant monetary supply, which the public authorities have decided. Obviously, there is no person who is unable to “justify” their own actions. And the representatives of the interventionist ideology are no exception. They claim that monetary abundance is a condition for economic growth, thus discarding what Cantillon and Hume had explained many years before; namely, that an increase in monetary circulation can have favourable effects on economic activity only in the interval of time in which the sequential process of price adjustment has not yet reached completion.80 Interventionists most of all obscure the fact that, when the level of interest rate is artificially depressed, operators are induced to invest in the medium- and long-term in projects which will turn out to be unsustainable and which will give rise to an explosion of debt and a destruction of resources81; they then attribute the entirely obvious development of speculative activities with which actors try to adapt to inflation itself to a 77  Choice on the part of economic operators is made possible by an institutional context in which freedom of issuance exists. See on this subject Selgin’s classic work (1988). For more extensive bibliographical references, cf. Aguirre and Infantino (2013). 78  Aguirre (1985), p. 26. See also Aguirre (2009), a work entirely dedicated to this issue. 79  The sequential nature of the inflationary process, that is the fact that not all actors are affected at the same time and to the same extent, produces the so-called Cantillon effect. See Infantino (2008) at length, pp. 199–200 and 268–269. 80  Op. cit., p. 242. 81  This is the dynamic on which the Austrian theory of the economic cycle is based. See Mises (1981b), Hayek (1935). For a summary of the theory, cf. Infantino (2008), pp. 197–205 and 237–252.

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conspiracy82; and they forget to say that it is the increased circulation which provides the means for this activity. The damage is irreparable. And, as part of it one must also include the devastation which the inflationary process wreaks on any individual pension plan. Those who retire are “robbed of a great part of what they had attempted to put aside for their retirement”.83 And this involves clear consequences also for the younger generations. Apart from taxation proper and inflationism, the State’s withdrawal is also fuelled by the public debt. Using their favourite method, the reification of collective concepts, interventionists in this case go as far as to claim that it is society which is indebted to itself, that debts and credits of the same individual cancel each other out and that therefore the State’s situation is not comparable to that of a single private actor, a household or an enterprise.84 But we are faced here by a mere rhetorical fiction which cannot deny the fact that, owing to inflationism, creditors receive as their return a capital having a real value which is substantially lower than expected. Therefore, a withdrawal to the detriment of citizens here occurs. And this is in addition to the negative consequences generated by the circumstance that public debt subtracts resources from competitive allocation and delivers them to the State’s coercive allocation. Interventionist ideology knows in any case how to evade its responsibilities. The unfortunate outcomes of its policy are attributed to free social cooperation and are used as arguments in favour of further forms of interference.

 Buchanan and Wagner (2000), p. 64.  Hayek (1960), p. 295. Röpke (1964, p. 70) aptly wrote: “Inflation, and the spirit which nourishes it and accepts it, is merely the monetary aspect of the general decay of law and of respect for law. It requires no special astuteness to realize that the vanishing respect for property is very intimately related to the numbing of respect for the integrity of money and its value. In fact, laxity about property and laxity about money are very closely bound up together; in both cases what is firm, durable, earned, secured and designed for continuity gives place to what is fragile, fugitive, fleeting, unsure and ephemeral”. The position of Keynes (1920, p. 20) was the exact opposite: “Individuals would be exhorted not so much to abstain as to defer, and to cultivate the pleasures of security and anticipation. Saving was for the old age or for the children; but this was in theory – the virtue of the cake was that it was never to be consumed, neither by you nor by your children after you”. And then comes the conclusion: “The war [The First World War] has disclosed the possibility of consumption to all and the vanity of abstinence to many” (op. cit., p. 22). 84  Buchanan and Wagner (2000), p. 37. 82 83

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5.4   “Unlimited Democracy” Taxation proper, inflationism and public debt characterize the life of “unlimited democracy”, which is clearly a “democracy in deficit”, which tends to restrict ever increasingly the area of voluntary cooperation. The pólis is turned into an oikía. Public power “occupies” the economy and becomes an independent variable. As we have seen in Chap. 3 (Sect. 3.1), Aristotle had already expressed his great concern with regard to such a system: he had exposed all the degenerations of a democracy with no limits and had openly advocated the “rule of law”. The same concern and the same proposal issued from the Scottish moralists. And Benjamin Constant, a thinker fully in line with that tradition, wrote in exemplary fashion that “the abstract recognition of the sovereignty of the people does not in the least increase the amount of liberty given to individuals”85; for, “if we attribute to that sovereignty an amplitude which it must not have, liberty may be lost notwithstanding that principle, or even through it”.86 The fact that public power is held in the name of popular sovereignty does not therefore shelter us from arbitrary actions. In order to safeguard individual freedom of choice, it is necessary for the action of public authorities also to be limited, even when they rule in the name of the people. Constant instructively also stated: “The error of those who, in good faith, in their love of liberty, have granted boundless power to the sovereignty of the people, derives from the way in which their political ideas were formed […] their wrath has been directed against the holders of the power rather than against the power itself. Instead of destroying it, they have simply thought of replacing it. It was a curse”.87 If public power is not limited, it is not a complement of free social cooperation. It becomes the main protagonist of collective life. It distorts intersubjective relations and deprives the formation of infrasocial power of  See Chap. 3, note 239.  Cf. Chap. 3, note 240. Sartori (1962, p. 373) rightly stated: “The formula of liberaldemocracy is equality through liberty, by means of liberty, not liberty by means of equality. Logically the inversion is plausible, but empirically it is not. It is exactly for this reason that democracy came back to life in the wake of liberalism. And for the same reason it is easy to predict that democracy will become once again a dead letter if liberal freedom is overthrown, and if the end of a greater equality is pursued to the detriment of the means which allow us to lay claim to it”. 87  Constant (1988), p. 176. The same idea is found in Tocqueville (1983, p. 168), who wrote: “what at first sight seemed a genuine love of liberty proves to have been merely hatred of a tyrant”. 85 86

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any autonomy. The position of a citizen no longer depends on what he is capable of doing for others, but instead on the link he entertains with politics in the narrower sense. “It is no longer independence but security which gives rank and status”.88 It is the triumph of the utility of actions over the utility of rules, of the “rule of men” over the “rule of law”. There is always some prevailing interest which is qualified as “strategic” for the furtherance of the “common good”. And ad hoc legislative measures proliferate and uproot the general and abstract rules of law. Their implementation has to be endured by everyone, even by those who dissent.89 And the interests which lend themselves least to an intermingling with public power are penalized. There are many who fail to understand that the overflow of the State’s activities into the territory of free social cooperation dismantles the principle of limitation of power. The political-administrative apparatus changes from being a complement to collective life to become the sole or prevalent active subject in the allocation of resources.90 It is believed that this provides a defence against infrasocial power, which is “never exclusive or complete power”, or a power over the entire life of a person.91 And one places oneself under the “protection” of public power, rendering it unlimited and making it a terrain for political profiteering. The point is that sovereignty of law should not be confused with sovereignty of parliament.92 And yet interventionism is fuelled precisely by this confusion. While the “conception of the rule (reign, sovereignty or supremacy) of law presupposes a concept of law defined by the attributes of the rules, not by their sources, today legislatures are no longer so called because they make the laws, but laws are so called because they emanate from legislatures”.93 In other words, it has come to be believed that, whatever its form or content, every parliamentary decision constitutes the law. And this is a serious error: because it leads to the belief that “the adoption of democratic procedures made it possible to dispense with all other  Hayek (1972), p. 130.  Mises (1966), p. 271, Leoni (2004), p. 231. 90  This is why Hayek (1972, p. 145) wrote: there are many who do not see that, “by uniting in the hands of some single body power formerly exercised independently by many, an amount of power is created infinitely greater than any that existed before, so much more far-reaching as almost to be different in kind”. 91  Op. cit., p. 146. See also Vitale (2009), pp. 5–32. 92  Hayek (1982), vol. 3, p. 4. 93  Ibid. 88 89

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l­imitations on government power”.94 Things are indeed very different. The law is a general and abstract rule, which marks out the boundary between actions performed on the basis of a voluntary choice. Legislation on the other hand is a measure by means of which public power shifts the boundaries which are (or would be) determined by voluntary cooperation. It is clear that this can all be rooted in the conceit that the Legislator always possesses a knowledge of the “relevant data”. But on the part of the ruled there is often a naïve belief that “nominally democratic electoral processes are sufficient in themselves to guarantee that government remains within acceptable limits”.95 And, on the part of the rulers, this belief is exploited in order to extend their sphere of intervention. The paradox is just round the corner, though. Those who accept the simplistic belief in the sovereignty of the majority fail to understand that, in “unlimited democracy”, it is no longer the will or the opinion of the majority itself which determines “what the government does, but the government is forced to satisfy all kinds of special interests in order to build up a majority” and stay in power.96 This multiplies the negative medium- and long-term consequences because variable parliamentary majorities, which do not have the same interests as the majority of the ruled, set into motion a game (1) which is carried out without limitations, (2) which allows no scrutiny, (3) which becomes highly self-referential and (4) which inflicts a cost in terms of individual choice and socio-economic development. This means that the bill for interventionism is paid first and foremost by those who would have derived a benefit from free social cooperation and, in the medium- and long-term, by society as a whole. Recovering an ancient idea, Hayek suggested “of entrusting the task of stating the general rules of just conduct to a representative body distinct from the body which is entrusted with the task of government”.97 What was done by the Athenians, who only allowed the nomothetae to “change

94  Op. cit., p. 3. Leoni (1991, p. 23) rightly stated: “there is more than an analogy between the market economy and a judiciary or lawyers’ law, just as there is much more than an analogy between a planned economy and legislation”. The planner and the legislator, both dictating their economic and legal imperatives, are the operational faces of the same idea, namely that of centralization. See also Masala (2003), pp. 196–215. 95  Brennan and Buchanan (2000a), p. 8. 96  Hayek (2011), p. 172. 97  Hayek (1982), vol. 3, p. 111.

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the fundamental nomos”, should also be done by us.98 We should, that is, have a purely legislative body (legislative assembly), with the task of safeguarding the primacy of law and thus screening the measures of the governmental assembly. The members of the two bodies should not be chosen in the same way and for the same period of time: for, “if two assemblies were merely charged with different tasks but composed of approximately the same proportions of representatives of the same groups and especially parties, the legislature would probably simply provide those laws which the governmental body wanted for its purposes as much as if they were one body”.99 For their part, Buchanan and Tullock showed, using Wicksell to bolster their arguments, that all decisions which are not unanimous inflict a series of costs on minorities, who thus have a permanent incentive to re-discuss whatever has been decided.100 This, in turn, produces further costs. And, in any case, what is most important is that majority rule does not make it possible to gauge the real preferences of a collectivity.101 Buchanan and Tullock obviously did not suggest that the decisions of everyday politics should be submitted to the principle of unanimity. The use of this principle is exclusively directed to the affirmation of rules or institutions inside which the non-unanimous decisions should subsequently be adopted. In other words, the criterion of unanimity should be used in the formulation of new constitutional norms, such as to limit public power and prevent political decisions from producing their well-known negative consequences. The two authors expressed themselves as follows: “At the constitutional level, identifiable self-interest is not present in terms of external characteristics. The self-interest of the individual participant at this level leads him to take a position as a ‘representative’ or ‘randomly distributed’ participant in the succession of collective choices anticipated. Therefore, he may tend to act, from self-interest, as if he were choosing the best set of rules for the social group”.102  Ibid.  Op. cit., p. 112. 100  Buchanan and Tullock (1999). For the original formulation of the principle of unanimity, see Wicksell (1967), pp. 96–118. 101  Hence, the conclusion that no rule based on the majority principle is capable of representing the preferences of the collectivity. Which moves in the same direction as Arrow’s (1963) theorem, according to which there is no single voting process which can simultaneously comply with the minimum conditions which would make the decision representative of the decisions of voters. 102  Buchanan and Tullock (1999), p. 74. 98 99

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It is very doubtful that self-interest can suggest the best rules to be taken for a group: for expectations do not only depend on how each individual assesses the uncertain future, but also on how every person judges their own past and their current social position.103 It should also be added that Buchanan and Tullock themselves recognized the difficulty of producing any change to the constitution in a situation in which rulers have unlimited power.104 For his part, Hayek, in the course of a public discussion with Buchanan, pointed out that constitutional rules are only rules for the organization of government activity. And consequently one should not neglect that “a law of organization of government might prohibit government from doing certain things, but it can hardly lay down what used to be [known as] the rules of just conduct”, that is the general and abstract rules of law.105 Whatever the solutions proposed, the terms of the matter are clear. It is necessary to ensure that public power is led back to its function as a complement to free social cooperation. This cannot be done without a careful reconsideration of the individual needs which are currently entrusted to public power, since the fewer the functions of the State the greater the possibility of keeping the rulers in check and avoiding any “political exploitation” from occurring. It is a course of events which will probably not be encouraged by the new nomothetai or by a constituent assembly. It will perhaps be the unplanned outcome of the need to face up to external challenges and tackle the gigantic flows of information of the computerised world.

103   If misinterpreted, Buchanan and Tullock’s conclusions could lead perilously to Rousseau, who (see Chap. 2, note 218) stated: “To discover the best rules of society suited to each Nation would require a superior intelligence who saw all of man’s passions and experienced none of them, who had no relation to our nature yet knew it thoroughly, whose happiness was independent of us and who was nevertheless willing to care for ours; finally, one who, preparing his distant glory in the progress of times, could work in one century and enjoy the reward in another”. And yet, since Buchanan and Tullock declare that they adopt an individualistic approach, they have to rule out the possibility of the existence of a “point of view of society”. The “best set of rules for the social group” are thus the general and abstract norms of law, which allow the free mobilisation of resources and knowledge. And constitutional rules must accordingly limit public power, in order for the “rule of law” to be re-affirmed. 104  Buchanan and Tullock (1999). 105  Hayek (2011), p. 179. On the possible combination of Hayek and Buchanan’s positions, see Vanberg (1981).

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Unlimited democracy, which undermines the isonomic condition and the “rule of law”, will not be able to escape such a process. Our living conditions were not changed in the past by the ambition of any reformer. What changed them was an institutional complex which originated without any prior planning on our part.106 This was how there took place the greatest reform in the history of mankind, which marked out the borders of infrasocial relations and the boundary between ruled and rulers. Despite interventionism, that exploration has not yet been exhausted. In fact it has acquired new energy, because it has enormously expanded the existential horizon of each of us. Our task is to understand the meaning of all this and to avoid that institutions safeguarding individual autonomy are impaired or destroyed by our conceit and/or our ignorance.107 Reflecting as only he could on an aspect of British life in his times, Voltaire wrote: “Take a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same religion, and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. There the Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends on the Quaker’s word. At the breaking up of this pacific and free assembly, some withdraw to the synagogue, and others to take a glass. This man goes and is baptized in a great tub, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: that man has his son’s foreskin cut off, whilst a set of Hebrew words (quite unintelligible to him) are mumbled over his child. Others retire to their churches, and there wait for the inspiration of heaven with their hats on, and all are satisfied. If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another’s throats; but as there are

106  Mandeville (1924, vol. 2, p. 183) rightly said that men attribute themselves merits they do not possess. For his part, Smith (1976, vol. 1, p. 422), in referring to the process which had led to the granting of the Magna Charta, wrote: “A revolution of the greatest importance to the publick happiness, was in this manner brought by two different orders of people, who had not the least intention to serve the publick […]. Neither of them had either knowledge or foresight of the great revolution which [… they were] gradually bringing about”. 107  It is no accident that Hayek (1982, p. XX) stated: “if the first experiment of freedom we have tried in modern times should prove a failure, it is not because freedom is an impracticable ideal, but because we have tried it the wrong way”.

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such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace”.108 As a man of letters, Voltaire may have over-embellished his description somewhat. But his words certainly show us how much better the lives of people are in an institutional context, where infrasocial power and public power are prevented from suppressing our freedom of choice.

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Index1

A Action choice, 117, 159, 185, 198, 201 unintended consequences, 4n17, 195 Acton, Lord, 129, 130 Adventurer, 12n56, 36, 36n169, 203–206, 209, 209n124, 215, 216 Aguirre, J.A., de, x Alberoni, F., 201n81 Alembert, J.-B., d, 86, 87, 152n171 Alfaric, P., 59n7 Amasia, 106n255 Amos, 105–107, 106n255 Antiseri, D., 41n185 Aquinas, Th., 81, 82n140, 129, 130 Arendt, H., 74, 104n246 Aristotle, 41, 42, 49n216, 83, 116–120, 117n4, 118n10, 121n29, 122, 122n37, 124, 124n45, 124n46, 131, 166, 209, 246

Aron, R., 181, 187n26 Arrow, K.J., 249n101 Athens, 62n28, 64, 77n109, 84, 85, 86n166, 117, 117n4, 128, 133n85, 142n131, 152n171, 190, 200 Augustine, St., 41, 43, 44, 57–73, 58–59n7, 60n12, 61n25, 63n36, 71n84, 72n92, 72n93, 72n94, 75–79, 83, 83n146 Augustus, 191, 204, 208 B Bachrach, P., 3, 3n11 Baechler, J., 164n229 Ball, J., 83n143 Baratz, M.S., 3, 3n11 Barkai, A., 91n198 Barker, E., 117n6 Bartley III, W. W., 135 Bassani, M., 170n262 Bastiat, F., 242n67

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 L. Infantino, Infrasocial Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45081-6

277

278 

INDEX

Battaglia, F., 130n68 Bayle, P., 132n82, 145n143, 154, 154n179, 156n194, 183n7 Becker, H., 115n1 Bedeschi, G., 85n163 Bell, D., 37n175 Belohradsky, V., 42n195, 99n223, 102n238 Benigno, P., x Bentham, J., 19n91, 167n247, 185, 187n26 Bentley, A.F., 241n64 Berger, P.L., 96n217 Berghe, P.L., van, 27n120 Bergmann, G., 38n181 Bernard, St., 130 Bernier, F., 68n67, 133n86, 150n163 Bernstein, E., 89n184 Bettelheim, C., 91n198 Beveridge, W.H., 232 Bismarck, O., von, 232, 233 Bitetti, R., x Blau, P.M., 46n209 Bloch, E., 90n195 Bobbio, N., 25n115, 37n176, 145n139, 182n6, 186n22, 192, 193n46, 196, 202 Böhm-Bawerk E., von, 11n50, 20, 125n51 Böhmler, A.A., 126n51 Boisset, J., 83n150 Bonaparte, N., 89n184, 97n220, 217 Boniolo, G., 71n84 Borghero, C., 152n171, 154n179 Borkenau, F., 196 Boudon, R., 34n157, 37n175 Bourricaud, F., 34n157, 37n175 Bowles, S., 12n56 Brennan, G., 235n41, 239n56, 243n70 Brown, P., 72n92

Buchanan, J.M., 225n8, 235n41, 236n45, 239n56, 243n70, 249, 249n100, 250, 250n103, 250n105 Bucharin, N., 95n211 Burckhardt, J., 67n59 Bureaucracy, 30, 102, 102n238, 108, 121n30, 236n45 Burgess, E.W., 211, 211n132 Burke, E., 5n21, 103n239, 147n150, 149, 162, 165n237, 166n243, 217n162 Busino, G., 182n6 C Caeser, C.J., 204 Cagli, V., x Calic, E., 90n192 Calvin, J., 83, 84n154 Cantillon, R., 244 Cardini, A., 240n161 Cassirer, E., 42, 85n163, 86n168, 87, 94n208 Catlin, G.E.G., 3, 3n13, 48–51, 49n215, 49n216, 49n218, 49n221, 50–51n230, 51n232, 51n233 Chafuen, A.A., 81n135 Christianity, 59n7, 63–65, 72n93, 73, 79, 81, 82, 84, 90, 96n216, 154n179 totalitarian interpretation of, 73 Cicero, M.T., 29n138, 122, 123 Clastres, P., 31n146 Cochrane, C.N., 59n7 Cohen, A.I., viii Cohen, P.S., 27n120 Colombatto, E., x, 21n102, 22n103 Competition, 19–22, 21n102, 22n103, 22n105, 24, 26, 27, 30n139, 41, 97, 115, 116, 136,

 INDEX 

162, 167, 184, 201, 202, 202n86, 205, 207, 210, 210n127, 216, 225, 229, 231n18, 233n27, 235, 236, 238 Comte, A., 1, 2, 45, 101n236, 158n200, 195 Conflict redemption from, 41, 44, 57, 76, 89n188, 96, 104, 155 regulation of, 41, 42, 45, 115, 116, 124n46, 166, 173–174, 202, 208 Consensus, 27n120 Constant, B., x, 86n166, 92n203, 133n85, 166, 224, 246, 246n87 Contractualism, 5, 142, 145n138, 156 Cooperation coercitive, 93, 155, 158, 240 and society, 26, 27, 156, 171 voluntary, vii–x, 13, 14n65, 18, 29, 32, 34, 40, 77, 78, 88, 95, 101, 115, 116, 123, 126, 156, 158, 161–164, 169, 171, 173, 198, 223–252 Coser, L.A., 27n119 Cosmos, 123, 124 Cranston, M., 9n44 Cromwell, O., 84, 84n154, 89n184 Cubeddu, R., x, 168n251 D Dahl, R.A., 3, 3n10 Dahrendorf, R., 94 Dalle Molle, A., 241n65 Dante, 26 Darwinians before Darwin, 162–164 De Mucci, R., x De Viti de Marco, A., 207, 234n34, 239–241, 239n57, 240n62, 243n70 Democracy

279

liberal, 246n86 unlimited, 223–252 Demsetz, H., 241n64 Descartes, R., 84, 85, 85n157, 130, 138n110 Destutt de Tracy, A.-L., 37n176, 98n220 Diderot, D., 86, 87 Downs, A., 34n157 Drewermann, E., 96n216 Durkheim, É., ix, 5n19, 49n215, 92n203, 140, 140n125, 140n126, 141n127, 142, 142n129, 182n6, 197, 202, 211n132 Dworkin, R., 172n269 E Easton, D., 3 Ehrenberg, V., 117n6, 133n85 Einaudi, L., 233, 241n65 Elijah, 105 Engels, F., 4n17, 90n197, 101, 202, 202n92 Equality legal, 123–128 and secularisation, 123–128 Evola, J., 92n201 Exchange and power, 5–9 and society, 34 Explotation (political), ix, 31, 34, 35, 40, 41, 43, 45, 94, 151n164, 206, 229, 230, 236, 239, 243, 250 Ezekiel, 105 F Fallibility, 38n179, 137, 137n109, 142, 147n150, 149, 165, 225 Fallocco, S., x

280 

INDEX

Fasiani, M., 233, 233n27 Fénelon, F., de, 85n162, 85n163, 97n218, 152n171, 154n179 Ferguson, A., 4n17, 148n152, 159n208, 162n217, 164, 164n229 Ferrara, F., 242 Ferrero, G., 2, 79, 87n179, 88n181, 97–98n220, 100, 100n228, 102n237, 209n124 Fink, Z.S., 131n74, 133n85 Fisichella, D., 90n196 Forbes, D., 139, 139n123, 145 Frankel, S.H., 17n83 Frazer, J., 217n162 Freedom of choice, 5n21, 45, 67, 84, 86n166, 97n218, 116, 123–128, 130, 133n85, 150n158, 159, 160, 162, 164, 164n229, 202, 233, 236–238, 243, 246, 252 private property and, 41, 116, 125, 128 Freud, S., 11n51, 11n52, 23, 23n107, 211 Freund, J., 181 Friedman, M., 210n127 Friedrich, C.J., 73, 74, 74n100 Fromm, E., 103n239 Furet, F., 96n216 Fustel de Coulange, N.D., 31, 133n85 G Game (positive-sum), 14, 18, 140n124, 158n200, 171, 225 Gelasius, 82n139 Germani, G., 115n1 Gianturco Gulisano, x, 13n57 Gilson, É., 80, 81 Gintis, H., 12n56 Glotz, G., 117n8, 133n85 Gomperz, T., 92n203

Gordon, T., 168n254 Gouhier, H., 85n163 Gray, J., 172n269 Grote, G., 62, 78 Guerci, L., 85n160 Gumplowicz, L., 30n139 Gurvitch, G., 181 H Halévy, É., 137n108, 139n123 Harrington, J., 68n67, 131n74, 133, 133n85, 133n86, 150n163 Hayek, F.A., 4n18, 5n21, 6n25, 12, 12n57, 13n58, 14n65, 15n69, 18n89, 21, 21n100, 21n102, 22n103, 24n113, 36n169, 50n230, 97n220, 99n224, 116, 123, 124n45, 125n50, 128n59, 130n71, 132n82, 133n86, 135n94, 137n106, 137n109, 144n137, 145n138, 147, 158n201, 158n203, 161n212, 166n243, 167n248, 172n269, 210n126, 210n128, 216n159, 217n162, 226–227n13, 228n15, 233n27, 235, 242, 247n90, 248, 250, 250n105, 251n107, 252n108 Hegel, G.W.F., 73n94, 101n236 Hesiod, 62 Hilferding, R., 91n198 Hirschman, A.O., 34n158 Hitler, A., 89, 89n191, 90n192, 92, 95n215, 103n239 Hobbes, Th., 100n228, 130–132, 130n68, 131n78, 132n82, 132n83, 134, 134n91, 145n139, 149–150n158 Hobhouse, L.T., 211n132, 232 Hoffmann, E., 58, 58n7, 60n12, 65n48, 65n49, 70n80

 INDEX 

Hofmann, H., 84n154 Holcombe, R.G., 169n258 Homer, 29 Homo oeconomicus, 10–18, 184, 185, 187n26, 215, 216, 216n159, 218, 223–229, 228n15 Hubert, R., 86n168 Hughes, E.C., 211n131 Huizinga, J., 128, 172, 172n268 Hume, D., x, 4n17, 23n108, 31n147, 38, 38n181, 84n154, 130n71, 134n87, 134n92, 146–148, 150, 150n158, 152–157, 152n172, 153n176, 158n200, 159n208, 160–164, 160n209, 161n212, 162n217, 163n222, 166, 167, 170, 170n262, 173n270, 182, 183, 186, 209, 224, 244 Hus, J., 83n143 I Iannello, N., x Ideology, 41, 92n203, 94n208, 181, 195, 236, 236n42, 244, 245 Ignorance, 78, 128, 134n92, 137, 149, 149n157, 152n171, 160, 161, 242, 251 and fallibility, 137, 137n109, 142, 147n150, 149, 165, 225 Illusion (financial), 239 Individualism (methodological), viii–x, ixn4, 3–5, 4n17, 49n215, 50n230, 51, 96n217, 224, 227 Infantino, L., ixn4, 5n19, 12n56, 48n213, 68n67, 89n188, 117n6, 137n108, 142n130, 203n92, 216n159, 226n10 Innocent III, 81, 82n139 Intermingling of politics and the economy, 206–210, 210n126, 210n127

281

Interventionism, 91n198, 207, 208, 230, 239, 241, 242, 247, 248, 251 vs. rule of law, 139 Invisible hand, 157, 225n9 Isonomia, 117, 117n8, 123 Israel, J., 58, 86n168, 106n255, 108 J Jacobson, D.L., 168n254 Jaeger, W., 59n7, 62, 63n36, 64, 64n44, 65, 65n49, 117, 117n8, 123, 133n85, 142n131 Jeremiah, 58 Jeroboam, 106n255 Jerome, St., 82n140 Jevons, W.S., 216n159 Jhering, R., von, 18n87, 22n105, 31 Joachim of Fiore, 82 John, King, 81n139 Jonas, F., 142n130 Jones, J.W., 67n59 Jouvenel, B., de, 2 K Kant, I., 51n232, 94n208, 134n92 Kaplan, A., 212 Kautsky, K., 90n196 Kelsen, H., 62 Keynes, J.M., 226n13, 243n73, 245n83 Kingdom of God without God, 78–92 Kirzner, I.M., 12–13n57, 21n102, 187n26 Klemperer, V., 98n222 Kline, B.E., 149n157 Knowledge dispersion of, 147–148, 210, 231 fallibility, 142 ignorance, 142, 149, 149n157, 160, 161, 242

282 

INDEX

Koch, H., 64n44 Kolakowski, L., 90n196 Küng, H., 72n93 Kuntz, D., 89n191 L Laidler, D., 10n47, 17n83 Laissez-faire, 167, 167n247, 168, 168n251 Lasswell, H.D., 3, 3n13, 211–218 Law, J., 210n129, 243 Law (rule of law), 43, 45, 115–117, 119, 122–124, 124n46, 127, 129–135, 139, 141, 160, 160n209, 161, 165, 166, 166n243, 171, 173, 181, 183, 196, 209, 210, 214–216, 231, 246, 247, 250n103, 251 Le Bon, G., 211n132 Legislator the myth, 133, 140n126, 142, 145–149, 155, 170 the toppling, 145–149 Lehning, A., 31n146 Lenin, V.I., 92, 95n215, 101 Lenski, G.E., 27n120 Léonard, È.G., 83, 83n146 Leoni, B., 125n51, 173n270, 210n126, 248n94 Lévi-Strauss, C., 73n96 Lindsay, A., 143n132 Lipset, S.M., 37n175 Lloyd George, D., 232 Locke, J., 19n91, 134–136, 134n92, 135n94, 136n97, 136n105, 138n110, 139, 140, 140n124, 168 Loewith, K., 89n183 Lottieri, C., 169n258 Luckmann, T., 96n217 Luke, st., 75n104

Lukes, S., 3–5, 4n17 Luther, M., 83, 83n146 Luxury, 85, 85n163, 150–155, 152n171, 152n172, 153n176, 233n27 Lycurgus, 78, 84, 85n162, 86, 123, 133n85, 152n171, 200 M Mably, G., de, 86, 86n166 Macchioro, V., 65n49 Machiavelli, N., 41–43, 43n197, 133n85, 149–150n158, 182n6, 199, 202 Machiavellianism and Pareto, 181–218 and totalitarianism, 92–105 Machlup, F., 10n47 Mandeville, B., de, x, 4n17, 145, 145n143, 146, 148–152, 150n158, 151n169, 152n171, 152n172, 154–156, 158, 158n200, 160, 160n209, 162–164, 163n222, 166, 167, 167n247, 170, 170n262, 182, 183n7, 224, 251n106 Mannheim, K., 203n92 Marcion, 70n80 Marcos de la Fuente,J., viii, x Mariana, J., de, 81n135 Marshall, A., ix, 233n27 Marsilius of Padua, 129 Martin, N.H., 149n157 Marx, K., 4n17, 68n67, 75n103, 89, 91, 91n197, 92n203, 143n132, 202, 202–203n92, 203, 203n94, 211 Masala, A., 248n94 Mayer, H., 187n26 Mead, G.H., 211, 217 Meineke, F., 161n212 Melon, J.-F., 152n171

 INDEX 

Menger, C., ix, x, 4, 4n16, 5n21, 13n60, 17, 20, 23n108, 187n26, 224, 243 Merriam, C.E., 25, 206n109, 211, 216n161 Merton, R.K., 217n162 Methodology, viii, ix, ixn4, 4, 6, 50, 50n230, 51, 143, 216, 225n9 methodological individualism, viii–x, ixn4, 3–5, 4n17, 49n215, 50n230, 51, 96n217, 224, 227 Metternich, K., von, 97n220 Michels, R., 201n85 Miglio, G., 205n107 Mill, J.S., 12n54, 49n216, 187n26, 216n159, 226, 226n13, 228n15, 233n27 Millar, J., 4n17, 159n208, 160n211, 164n229 Milton, J., 131n74, 133, 133n85 Minos, 78n113, 85n162, 152n171 Mirabeau, H.G.R., 87n179 Mises, L., 10, 10n47, 11n53, 14n66, 17n85, 20, 21, 30n139, 40, 45, 81n135, 91, 91n198, 95, 121n29, 126n51, 141n127, 158n200, 167n246, 185n19, 188n30, 195, 208n120, 210n126, 228n15, 229n16, 231n18 Mobilisation of knowledge, 123–125, 148, 160, 162, 164n229, 210, 238, 250n103 Molina, L., de, 81n135 Molinari, G.,de, 169 Money manipulations of, 244 money in Sparta, 243 Mongardini, C., 37n176, 142n130 Monopoly of knowledge, 40, 41, 77, 142 Montesquieu, C., de, 140n126, 152n171, 157n196, 162

283

More, Th., 130 Mosca, G., 37–39 Moses, 58, 69, 69n74, 107 Mumford, L., 31n143 Müntzer, Th., 84 Musca, G., 81n139 N Natural law, 19, 19n91, 143n131, 147, 171n266 Nazism (National Socialism), 89n190, 90, 91n198, 101, 103n239 and private property, 90 Necker, J., 2 Nietzsche, F., 49n221, 98, 188n28, 199 Nock, A.J., 30n139 Nozick, R., 128n59, 172n269 O Oakeshott, M., 126n55 O’Driscoll, G.P., 20n93 Olbrechts-Tyteca, L., 194, 201, 201n83 Ollier, F., 78, 78n113, 79 Olson, M., 169n258 Omniscience, 12n57, 103, 137, 137n109, 141, 159 Oppenheimer, F., 30n139, 30n140 Order abstract, 124 coercitive, 156, 166 unintended, 102n236, 123, 124, 140n125, 158 Origen, 64, 64n44 Ortega y Gasset, J., 1, 5n19, 7n38, 15n69, 26n119, 36, 76n105, 116n4, 122, 124n45, 141n127, 142n128, 142n131, 154n180, 157n194, 166n241, 174n271, 198n70, 217, 226n10

284 

INDEX

Orwell, G., 97n219, 98n222, 100, 100n230 Ossowski, S., 27n120 P Paganini, G., 145n143 Panebianco, A., 172n268 Pantaleoni, M., 209n124 Pareto, V., ix, 27n120, 37n177, 38n179, 181–218 Park, R.E., 211, 212 Parmenides, 62, 63, 63n36 Parsons, T., ix, x, 4n16, 140n124, 184n15, 186n24, 188n30, 189n33 Pascal, B., 130 Passerin d’Entrèves, A., 147, 147n148 Paul, St., 60n12, 69, 69n74, 70, 70n76, 72n94, 83 Pellicani, L., x, 68n67, 83n143, 90n192 Penn, W., 216 Perelman, C., 194, 201, 201n83 Pericles, 86n166, 119 Perrin, G., 187n26 Pigou, A.C., 232, 233, 233n27 Pipes, R., 68n67 Pizzorno, A., 188n28 Plato, 40n183, 44, 49n216, 51n232, 57–79, 77n109, 78n113, 83–85, 92, 92n203, 94, 127n56, 142–143n131, 152n171, 243 Plotinus, 58, 59n7, 61n25, 63n36, 63n38, 64, 68, 69n71 Plutarch, 79 Pocock, J.G.A., 152n171 Pohlenz, M., 133n85 Polanyi, K., 119, 122 Pollock, F., Sir, 162 Popper, K.R., 4n17, 5n21, 39n181, 51n232, 68n67, 73, 75n103,

108n263, 126, 127n57, 135, 135–136n97, 136n99, 137n107, 138n110, 142n131, 149n157, 166n241 Porphyry, 64, 69n71 Power and influence, 23n107, 46–48 infrasocial, ix, 25, 246, 247, 252 limitation of, 77, 94n208, 108, 115–116, 200, 247 public, ix, 28–30, 30n139, 32–35, 37, 40, 45–47, 50, 51, 67, 72, 79, 82, 84, 91n198, 93–95, 98, 100n228, 101, 101n232, 103, 104, 106, 108, 115–116, 123, 126, 127, 130–132, 134, 137–140, 143, 155, 159–170, 163n222, 173, 183, 205, 206, 209, 210, 214, 215n153, 216, 224, 227–231, 235–240, 242–244, 246–250, 250n103, 252 Preobrazenskij, E., 95n211 Privileged point of view on the world, 5n21, 40, 41, 78, 92n203, 99n225, 104, 116, 125, 127–130, 140–145, 141n128, 143n131, 148, 198, 203n92 Property private, 20, 23, 23n107, 23n108, 24, 40, 68, 76, 77, 89–91, 92n203, 93, 95, 104, 116, 125, 128, 133, 133n86, 150–155, 168n251, 184, 202, 231n18, 233n27 Prophet of doom, 105–108 Protagoras, Puviani, A., 60 Psychologism, viii, 5, 5n21, 11, 140–145, 145n139, 192–196, 199, 226n13 trap of, 211–218

 INDEX 

R Raphael, 26 Rawson, E., 153 Reale, G., 62n31 Reichlin, P., x Ricardo, D., 158n200 Ricciotti, G., 106n255, 107n258 Ricossa, S., 91n197 Ritter, G., 36n171 Rizzi, B., 105n248 Rizzo, M.J., 20n93 Robbins, L., 19n91, 168n251, 234n31 Robespierre, M., de, 89n184 Röhm, E., 103n239 Romulus, 123, 133n85 Röpke, W., 245n83 Rostovtzev, M.I., 243n76 Rothbard, M.N., 169, 170, 170n262 Rousseau, J.-J., 19, 19n91, 85–87, 85n162, 85n163, 86n166, 97n218, 142n129, 143n132, 143n135, 152n171, 197n63, 250n103, 252n108 Rowe, N., 10n47 Rule of law, 41, 45, 115–117, 119, 122–124, 124n46, 127, 129–135, 139, 141, 160, 160n209, 161, 165, 166, 166n243, 171, 173, 181, 183, 196, 209, 210, 214–216, 231, 246, 247, 250n103, 251 Rule of men, 43, 45, 123, 127, 133, 159, 161, 172, 209, 247 Russell, B., 2, 92, 92n203, 116n4, 212n139 Ruyer, R., 94n208 S Sabine, G.H., 19n91, 136n97 Saint-Just, L.A., de, 86

285

Salin, P., 30n139 Sartori, G., 38n181, 246n86 Savigny, F., von, 124, 124n47, 162 Sax, B.C., 89n191 Say, J.-B., 98n220 Scarcity, vii, 7, 9–11, 12n56, 17, 21, 22n103, 23, 23n108, 24, 29, 30, 32, 43n197, 90–91n197, 92, 93, 138, 150–156, 159, 160, 162, 163n222, 164, 165, 170, 185, 199, 224, 225, 227, 228, 241n64 and power, 7 Schiavone, G., 133n85 Schmitt, C., 171, 171n266, 172, 172n268 Schmoller, G., 89n190 Schumpeter, J.A., 184, 189, 189n33 Schutz, A., 96n217 Schwartz, E., 84n155 Scribano, M.E., 145n143 Secularisation, 82, 123–128, 141n128 and freedom of choice, 123–128 Selgin, G.A., 244n77 Selznick, P., 101n232 Senior, N.W., 234, 234n31, 234n34 Sennett, R., 9n43 Settembrini, D., 90n196, 91n198 Shils, E., 37n175 Simmel, G., ix, x, 5–10, 10n47, 13n60, 14, 14n62, 15n70, 15n71, 16, 17, 17n80, 17n83, 19, 19n91, 20, 25, 26n118, 26–27n119, 27n120, 28, 29, 34, 35, 45–48, 46n209, 62n27, 96n217, 103n240, 115, 121n29, 125n51, 156–157n194, 173n270, 198, 204, 205, 209n124, 211, 211n130, 211n132, 212, 223, 224, 224n4, 226n13, 228n15, 243 Sisyphus, 154 Small, A.W., 211, 211n130

286 

INDEX

Smith, A., x, 4n17, 12n56, 14n68, 21n100, 31n147, 48n213, 81n136, 146–148, 147n150, 150, 150n158, 150n163, 151, 151n164, 153–157, 157n196, 158n200, 160, 160n209, 160n211, 162–164, 163n222, 164n229, 165n232, 166, 167, 169n256, 170, 170n262, 182, 183, 187n26, 224, 231, 238, 251n106 Socialism and interventionism, 248 and property, 184, 202 Social sciences, viii, x, 2, 4, 13n59, 39n181, 49n216, 50, 140, 141, 145, 182, 195, 197, 218, 225 the birth of, 141 Society abstract, 126, 126n52 as coercitive order, 156 the discovery of, 155–163 industrial, 29, 45, 92n203, 240 militant, 29, 45, 240 as unintended order, 102n236, 123, 124, 140n125, 158 Socrates, 34n157, 35 Solon, 117, 122, 128 Sombart, W., 36n166, 142, 142n130, 145 Sorel, G., 197n63, 203n94 Sorokin, P., 27n120 Sparta Christian, 78–92 the myth of, 78–92, 78n113 Spencer, H., 31n146 Spengler, O., 92n203 Spooner, L., 169 Stark, R., 80, 81 Sternberger, D., 41–43, 45, 57, 67n63, 78, 84n153, 90n195, 94n207, 115, 116, 119, 120, 120n26, 124n46

Stewart, D., 161 Stiglitz, J.E., 22n103, 225n9 Stoppino, M., 33n156, 47n211, 212n136, 214n151, 216n161 Strauss, L., 132, 132n83, 142n128, 142n131, 149n158, 163n222 Swift, J., 154n179 Sydney, A., 131n74, 133, 133n85 T Talmon, J.L., 86 Tangorra, V., 43n197, 43n199 Tawney, R.H., 212n139 Taxis, 123, 124, 124n45, 129 Taylor, O.H., 20n93, 167n247 Thales, 142n131 Thibaudeau, A.C., 98n220 Thoreau, E.D., 210n127 Tiberius, 191 Tocqueville A., de, x, 5n21, 27n119, 87, 88, 88n182, 96, 96n216, 118n10, 173, 174, 174n271, 224, 234, 234n34, 237, 246n87, 252n108 Topitsch, E., 199n71 Totalitarianism and Augustine, 73–78 and Plato, 73–78 Trenchard, J., 168n254 Troeltsch, E., 43, 71n84, 77, 79 Trotskij, L., 105n248 Tucker, J., 157n196 Tyler, W., 83n143 U Utilitarianism homo oeconomicus and, 11, 184, 185, 187n26, 224 and Pareto, 184–188

 INDEX 

V Valade, B., 193n46 Vanberg, V.J., 250n105 Vatiero, M., 126n51 Viner, J., 158n200, 167n247 Vitale, A., 247n91 Vitoria, F., de, 81n135 Voegelin, E., 71n84, 82, 87, 89, 90 Voltaire, 85n163, 86, 87, 152n171, 172, 251, 252, 252n108 W Wagner, R.E., 236n45 Walras, L., 187n26 Walzer, M., 84, 84n154, 89, 89n184 Weber, M., ix, ixn4, x, 2–4, 10n50, 27n120, 33n155, 36, 36n169, 38n179, 39n181, 39n182, 46, 46n209, 47, 69, 100n230, 104, 104n246, 105, 107, 108, 121, 121n30, 125, 125n50, 126,

126n54, 131n74, 133, 188, 188n30, 200, 201n81, 205, 209n124, 211n132 Whately, R., 228n15 Whig, 134n87 Whiggism, 139, 140n124, 145, 145n143, 163, 169 and the birth of social sciances, 141 Wicksell, K., 240, 240n62, 249 Wieser, F., von, 235n41 Wolin, S.S., 132n83 Woodhouse, A.S.P., 84n154 Wootton, B., 234n33 X Xenophon, 98n220 Z Zeller, E., 62n28

287