"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every post-war American president would have to be hanged."
So observes Noam Chomsky, professor of Linguistics at M.I.T. and radical critic of American - and by implication European - domestic and foreign policy. In addition to damning post-war American presidents (on the grounds that they have personally abused their position of power in so far as they have acted against the moral interests of individuals, groups and nations) he makes the more general and more frightening observation that:
"For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we (in the West) are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments."
It should be clear to all who have no vested interest in the present global political climate and who reflect deeply upon this state of affairs, that the societies which we have erected for our protection are profoundly flawed. They are flawed because the nature of the human beast is flawed; it suffers, as Golding once said, from 'the disease of being human'. What precisely the disease is is not entirely clear, but in Golding's view and in the pessimistic view of Thomas Hobbes, the disease is particularly virulent, and truth to tell it is difficult to resist their pessimism. Such an imperfect creature as Man (they suggest) cannot expect to construct anything other than a society which binds him in chains, drugs him with propaganda and drains his higher virtues through systematic processes of disillusionment. Utopia is for the gods and human imbeciles. We have, in fact, only just hauled ourselves out of the swampland and crept tentatively upon the drier ground. As Hobbes supposed, we are merely steps away from our natural condition which is one of extreme insecurity and a disposition to violence. Left to himself, each individual left to himself, yes, for him life would be filled with continual fear; his life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short..."
That there ever was such a state of nature is probably a myth. The import of the image lies rather in the abstract contrast it provides with the 'state of society' - that is, society protects us from our individual and racial imperfections - imperfections which would erupt like excrescent boils is society did not bind us in contracts through consent.
In order, therefore, to understand the indignation expressed by Chomsky above, it is necessary to first understand precisely what contracts through consent are in place today and what contracts through consent there ought to be. To this end I shall outline Hobbes' view and then move on to the views of Locke and Mill from whose notions of liberty and individualism Chomsky's present political and moral opinions derive. It is indeed through an understanding of modern libertarianism that we shall derive a better understanding of state moral dereliction. Finally, I shall briefly look at the kind of 'moral' point of view perpetrated by national and international corporations to keep the masses impotent and bovine, thereby preserving and increasing their power over economic processes and Government activity.
Part 1
Hobbes' political theory.
Hobbes' fundamental premise is that certain prescriptions must be met in order to save Man from his natural condition, and this set of rules he called 'Natural Laws' - natural in the sense of being inalienable because pre-political. That is to say, these precepts must be met by any secure society. Interestingly enough it was the study of these 'Natural Laws' which Hobbes called 'Moral Philosophy'.
In theory any society which sustains this set of pre-political precepts is a just an justifiable community. In so far as any institution denies these rules, then that institution is derelict. To understand this it is important to note the distinction Hobbes makes between natural persons and artificial persons. If an individual acts autonomously; that is, if what a person does and says can be said to be his own, then that person is natural. If, however, the words and actions of a person are not his own, but have come from outside of him, then that person is artificial. For Hobbes the State (the institutions and instruments of government) is an artificial person. Natural persons give up their rights to govern themselves (in large matters) and allow themselves to be governed by an artificial person - Leviathan. In this way individuals deny the state of nature and consent to be citizens of a commonwealth.
The Leviathan can become (if it is allowed) a monster of control and oppression, so the contracts which justify the state are of central importance. Primarily there is the contract between natural persons who together - for mutual benefit - relinquish individual self-government and agree to be governed by the State. And secondly there is the contract between Leviathan and the natural persons whereby the latter receive security from the former which is guaranteed. It seems a reasonable state of affairs since from the citizens' point of view the possible excesses of Leviathan will be more acceptable than the degradations and hostilities of the 'natural condition'. So the contract is worth adhering to as long as the State protects its citizens from internal and external strife.
The contractual rights bestowed on Leviathan are comprehensive and prima facie appear overly oppressive. However, it should be remembered that in society i.e., within the Commonwealth, the citizens are the real (natural) agents. Hence, when the State enforces the rules it is really the subjects enforcing the rules over themselves for their own benefit. So, Leviathan can do no real injustice to the citizens.
To the modern mind the Hobbesian contract is unacceptable because the individual signs away too much personal freedom; in effect he is giving carte blanche to the sovereign (in whatever form government may take) to behave in any way it sees fit so long as it caries out its side of the bargain, which is to guarantee internal and external security to the Commonwealth. But note the revolutionary residue: Hobbes is quite clear about this. The State/sovereign is only justified if it delivers its duties. If for any reason it fails to do so then its authority is rendered null and void and the State must be overthrown, because Leviathan exists only to save Man from the diabolic state of nature; that is its raison d'être.
Locke's political theory.
From the hypothetical excesses of Hobbes' contracts through consent I want now to turn to the refinements offered by John Locke in his second Treatise of Government which focus on the notion of liberty.
For Locke the 'disease of being human' is not nearly so appalling as Hobbes' vision. Once again the concept of a state of nature is offered as an abstract device whereby the political society may be judged as appropriate or otherwise. Locke's state of nature is more closely akin to a degenerate form of the political state. In a state of nature people are in a 'state of perfect freedom' with respect to their actions, their lives and their property. In this state there is no constraint. There is also Equality where there is an equal distribution of power. The rights enjoyed by persons in this state are natural and God-given so that each individual has the right to "the Preservation of the Life, Liberty, Health (and) Goods." However, there is no government, no state apparatus, to guarantee the Preservation - and this is Locke's objection to the state of nature: the fact that it is inconvenient. In the state of nature the Preservation can only be ad hoc, incomplete and disorderly, so in Locke's words "Civil Government is the proper Remedy for the Inconveniences of the State of Nature."
The revolutionary note remains, however. If the sovereign government fails to ensure the Preservation, then it forfeits its legitimacy and may be overthrown.
The state of nature is also characterized as being "Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on Earth." However, this reason is unstable as is the desire to live in peace, and each is in danger of collapsing into irrationality and the intention or actuality of violence. When this happens persons exist in a state of war, and importantly it is to avoid this state of war that persons willingly place themselves into the governing hands of society because in doing so they create "a Power on Earth" capable of the Preservation and administering punishment to transgressors.
For Locke (and I agree with him) persons are naturally free and it is the sole purpose of the state (of Government) to protect that freedom. When it curtails my natural freedom my contract with it is thereby broken and I am, in effect, in a state of war with the State. The State must, therefore, to be legitimate, have my consent and the consent of the majority of its citizens. Government without consent is slavery - and I shall be slave to no man and no institution, say I.
What I produce with my hands or my mind, if it is in surplus, is my property and must be protected. Protection of private property is therefore a right - a natural right. But listen; this is not the capitalist precept. The proviso of 'surplus' makes Locke an original socialist.
Mill's political theory.
Locke's emphasis on freedom is fundamental to understanding the views expressed at the beginning of this paper. But so is the notion of the individual fundamental to that understanding and it is to J.S. Mill that we should turn in order to see the importance the individual plays in relation to state authority and activity.
The basic problem of political theory is to find the fine balance between the freedom of the individual and Government, and specifically the problem for libertarian political theory is to maximize individual freedom and protect it fully from the authority of the state and the freedom of other individuals. Mill's views are famously expressed in his essay On Liberty. The beauty, I think, of Mill's analysis of the problem lies in his observations about the subtle erosive powers of agents acting against individual liberty. These agents exercise their power unobtrusively at first; like the slow replication of cancer cells which goes unnoticed for months, years even, until they appear as malignant tumours devouring the organism - the Commonwealth.
Mill doesn't use the cancer metaphor, but it is useful, I think, in reference to one of his main concerns - and that was the insidious erosive power which popular opinion has to smother the thoughts and opinions of minority groups. An original, though unpopular, idea might well be sponged out, quietly, unobtrusively, by public disapproval (which can be manufactured). Here lies the repression of the individual and the tyranny of the social mind, the tyranny of the social repertoire of values and anti-values (postmodernism/relativism/subjectivism).
If I am to make sense of the charge that Government often issues in moral dereliction, then I must place special emphasis upon the primacy of the individual; that is, his nature and his inalienable rights, and the preservation of that nature and those rights. Mill is worth quoting in full here:
Protection...against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compels all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.
What Mill calls "the tyranny of the majority" is easily found in democracies. It is not, as is popularly thought, confined to the pseudo contracts through consent of totalitarian states. Witness this - here and now; the potential for the National Curriculum to develop into something more than a basic non-political scheme of work; note the increasing emphasis placed on PSHE programmes and the increasing demands of government agencies to see 'civics' introduced to schools. Reflect on this a while: state as clearly as you can the ways in which schools encourage individuality and creativity of thought and ideas. The autocratic nature of schools directly reflects the received wisdom of the societies which invest in them, and freedom is not a prime concern. Conformity is. And the forces of conformity operate often with the unobtrusive subtlety of drifting odourless, poisonous gases. 'Poisonous' because conformity for its own sake corrupts the free mind. Without a conformist majority which exercises its will through pursuing the trivial, the sensual and routing out the 'misfits', a majority which allows its consent to be governed in the way it is to be manufactured, then the State loses its grip on power and control.
Mill was a political theorist, not a political scientist, and so when he says that what matters is our individuality he is not saying that what does matter is our individuality, but what ought to matter is our individuality. A political scientist might point out that if you study society you will find that individuality is not what people as a matter of fact do value. What they value instead might be security, or happiness, or wealth. Mill does not deny that this may be the case; he is simply saying that individuals ought to value what makes them unique, and that is their rational and creative faculties, their capacity for independent conscious thought, their capacity to value truth and transform themselves into better, more worthy creatures. Security is important, as is happiness and wealth - but not at the expense of losing individuality. To lose individuality is to become submerged into bland uniformity, to fall into the termite world, to become obsequiously servile, to become a conformist for the sake of being a conformist. So what follows from this ought? Erosion of individuality is an evil for it takes from life what makes life valuable, meaningful; it takes from life precisely that which makes life worth living.
It would be a mistake to think that Mill believed that the individual could exist in some kind of pure form. Clearly, for example, we as individuals are all products of our class, our economic group, our national and regional cultural heritage, our language etc. We all of us conform in this sense to a social group and in so far as we do this we are not 'individual'. Mill observes:
Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority.
But from the fact that the individual is in part constituted by his nurture it does not follow that all who share the same nurture are qualitatively similar or identical.
So, in Mill's view, what precisely does it mean to say that the state has a duty to protect precisely those differences between individuals? The individual has a right to do as he pleases with his own body and his own mind. In Mill's own words:
Over himself, Over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
The logic of the argument is as follows: because what each of us values should be protected, and because each of us values (ought to value) our individuality, we have a right to that individuality. In practice this means that each person may enjoy as much freedom as is consistent with the enjoyment of the same freedom by every other person. Freedom must be distributed equally.
Freedom of thought is also of fundamental importance because through this specific freedom knowledge grows in a manner which may result in the transcendence of the present human condition.. So, Mill's liberalism is founded on two epistemological premises. The first is realism which holds that every belief is true or false irrespective of whether it is believed or not; and falsification which states that any of our beliefs could in principle turn out to be false. Liberal societies are therefore societies which promote knowledge, and any political activity which suppresses such freedom of thought can be said to promote moral dereliction since knowledge is taken to be a good in itself. It is, after all, only through the opposition of views that knowledge grows. (And once again schools and educational institutions in general should take careful note.)
Mill's liberalism has its difficulties, of course. To work effectively in conjunction with his utilitarian beliefs it must be assumed that individuals always use their civil liberty to act in their own best interests and in the interests of society. But individuals do not always act in this way so that there can never be a guarantee that the greatest possible liberty can be achieved in a just equilibrium with the greatest possible measure of happiness. This is a psychological problem, not a problem of logic; it is part of the 'disease of being human' and its resolution therefore entails a moral as well as a political decision: do we give up the utilitarian ideal and allow individuals the freedom to harm themselves in both mind and body, because in itself freedom is valuable?
or
do we give up our liberal ideals and focus our efforts on producing the greatest possible measure of happiness in the greatest possible number of people - a process which would entail severe limitations on personal freedom.
The problem can in the end be reduced to this: which do we, as individuals and as a race, value more - Freedom or Happiness?
From the point of view of determining the moral worth of Government, however, clearly the principles of freedom and universal happiness are of fundamental importance and it is from this perspective that we must try to understand Chomsky's view of Leviathan.
Part 2
Chomsky, Libertarian-socialism and moral dereliction.
Whether or not a State behaves well according to its duties depends upon precisely the rights it is designed to protect. These rights may have a causal root in so far as they contribute to the commonwealth, but are not in themselves 'natural' i.e., pre-political. Such rights are not inalienable but conferred by the State upon the citizens in order to protect the commonwealth. An example might be consumer rights designed to protect the individual from unscrupulous manufacturers.
Much more important, though, are the inalienable rights which find their batholithic roots earthed firmly in human nature. The essence of human nature is freedom and we therefore intuit freedom as an elemental right; for by definition one cannot be fully a human being in a state of enslavement. So what, we might reasonable ask, is 'freedom'? for upon our answer depends our judgement apropos the moral worth of Leviathan.
Along with Chomsky I shall take freedom to mean: the vital concrete (non-philosophical) possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account.
What freedom means here is perfectly clear. It means that my freedom to bring myself to full fruition and turn my developed person to the promotion of the Commonwealth, is absolute and inalienable. Alone I cannot reach fruition. Alone I may reach no greater growth than that of a gnarled and undeveloped shoot in stony ground. I submit to the authority of the State, therefore, in order to more readily grow to my potential and live a more fruitful social existence. It is the duty of the State then, in return for my submission, to protect and encourage my personal and social growth in every manner of possible ways. The State has a moral duty so to do. And if it fails? Then it fails, and its moral dereliction becomes sufficient reason for its destruction.
This 'freedom' is, I submit, essential to human nature and it finds expression in certain needs. Each human individual of sound mind feels the need for creative work, be this mental or manual; viz., a need for free creation without the limiting interference of coercive institutions. For the majority of individuals, their creative drives are repressed by either [a] overt coercive forces (hours of repetitive work in factories and other workplaces, leaving minds and bodies too tired, too apathetic to create during work-free hours), or [b] subliminal coercive forces operating through cultural tides, swirling social floods, economic mythologies and educational ideologies. The virulent contra-liberty forces are everywhere, and everywhere subtle and enervating; and left unarmed in their grip we become as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for human creatures to become. Yet we call the Western world, the 1st world, civilized. It is a peculiarly arrogant and ignorant use of the term based on the notion that the "propensity in human nature...is to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another...".
There is no reason to suppose that free enterprise is the essence of human nature, though it is true that historically bartering and the exchange of goods has played a pre-eminent role as Smith suggests. The need to generate profit through commercial enterprise cannot plausibly be proposed as the elemental motive force which lies behind human activity. Yet this notion is perpetrated overtly and subliminally twenty-four hours of every day in 'liberal' capitalist democracies.
My view is that the fundamental condition which must be placed upon society is the condition of the freedom for self-realization through free creativity. The condition of freedom for free enterprise, on the other hand, paradoxically enslaves the mind by binding it in swathes of artifice. One is told that the dynamics of the market place (in effect: Every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost) is Man's natural condition: but this dynamic forces the myopic, the dull-witted and the weak into poverty; it drives the mediocre and indifferent into the quagmires and swamps of easy credit; and tempts the sharp and ruthless and just plain lucky into caverns of wealth. With this freedom and encouragement to pursue such economic ends as free enterprise the human species stays immobile on its evolutionary journey. Conformity becomes the social virtue and with conformity comes spiritual impotence. With spiritual impotence comes the death of the race.
The reason I have for holding this libertarian notion of freedom and the just form of commonwealth is derived from the following Cartesian theses:
The truly liberated mind is therefore the mind which has mastered language and uses it to create infinite coherent propositions and turns creativity upon the commonwealth. And what of the commonwealth? Libertarian socialism (anarchism) characterizes it plausibly and justly as a society organically composed of small communities centring on two units: that of the neighbourhood and the workplace.
So, the anarchist wishes to see centralized political and economic power diffused and under the control of localized co-operatives. In addition he wishes to see the workplace. under the workers' control; and such evidence as there is shows that workers' control increases efficiency.
But this anarchist vision of a self-disciplined and freely co-operative society with no centralized state, is anathema to capitalists. Capitalism is about power and about control and all means may be taken to ensure that control is never relinquished.
Let me now briefly outline Chomsky's criticism of Western Capitalism and the measures it takes in maintaining its grip on power, and then move on to a conclusion concerning Western Capitalism's moral dignity in view of what I have already said about freedom and creativity.
Chomsky's central premises are:
Adam Smith wrote: At every stage there is revealed the working of the vile maxim of the masters of mankind: 'All for ourselves and nothing for other people'.
John Dewey (1859 - 1952) philosopher, psychologist, educator and social critic said:
I accuse Congress and the Political establishment of being the errand boys of Big Business.
and
Government is the shadow cast by business over society.
Chomsky talks of 'action intellectuals' who gather round political leaders and put the best spin on policies so that the real state of affairs is obscured, and the population hoodwinked and socially managed.
By 'real state of affairs' I mean the state of affairs as perceived by a disinterested analytic creative mind (the type that schools should be developing but aren't).
So what is the real state of affairs? The United States styles itself as 'the leader of the Free World' and indeed it is - that is, leader of those nations which enjoy relative freedom. If one contrasts the 'free West' with the totalitarian regimes of the East and Middle East then it is clear that the US and UK are free and open. But this freedom and openness is surface deep and the illusion cannot be easily sustained without the contrast of which I have just spoken.
The processes whereby the ruling elite manages its domination are subtle, but basically simple. The ruling elite must first manufacture consent: they must, that is, in effect gain the apparent agreement of the people. "You cannot," says Chomsky, "force people to obey by violence, as the Soviet system tried to do. So you need systems of indoctrination to ensure that they agree to what the ruling groups want to do."
The institutions at the centre of capitalist societies are under the autocratic control of corporations. If you apply political models to corporations (even to most small businesses) you should describe them as fascist in terms of their hierarchy and behaviour; there is strict control at the top and strict obedience at all other levels. Any give and take there is is essentially superficial. The fascist machine is anathema to the free mind and is therefore morally objectionable, and if it it is maintain power it must somehow defuse any effective democratizing force which may exist. Such a force is usually the labour movement and you can measure the strength of this force by the sustained, sophisticated and sometimes violent efforts to control it or smash it completely. Smashing the unions - or transforming them into polite (and therefore ineffective) labour clubs, is a fine way of defusing truly democratizing forces.
As the end of the century draws near we can clearly discern a global free market which prospers on control, political apathy and cynicism, on consumer obedience and trivial tastes and interests. Free thinking must be suppressed. So, we have the global and explicit message: free yourself from the oppression of labour movements - from agitators.
With the present levels of technological media and the general Western comfort factor, it is no difficult thing to turn minds away from the real state of affairs. Witness:
One does not have to be exceptionally bright to see that how things are is wrong. So who does one blame? The immediate reaction is to blame Government, and so we should, for they are accountable. However, blaming Government can have a depoliticizing effect in so far as it draws attention away from the central institutions of capitalist societies. One can vote a government out of office, but the institutions remain in place, untouched, and these institutions, the machines of Big Business, are not democratic but autocratic. They are, in effect, tyrannies and their tyranny is protected by their invisibility. It is best, therefore, from their point of view, to keep people's anger and discontent - such as it is - focused on Government.
Conclusion
If Mill is right, as I believe he is, that individual freedom should be maximized and that the state should protect that freedom and create the circumstances under which it can be maximized, then clearly our present relationship with Government is in a state of tension.
The cultural forces of the West, driven as they are by Big Business and the underlying belief in relativism and subjectivism which make corporate success possible, are forces of decadence. Individual freedom does not mean freedom to do whatever one wants in a freewheeling arbitrary fashion. It is rather the freedom which comes from the creative use of thought through language; the freedom which comes from self-limitation, from 'seeing things as they really are' as far as this is possible.
Government which does not promote this form of freedom is indeed morally derelict because it denies its citizens their essence. If all post-war American presidents (including the present incumbent) would have to be hanged if the Nuremberg Laws were applied today, then it is because these men have fronted governments (acting on behalf of autocratic institutions) which have committed crimes against individual freedom in both their domestic and foreign policies.
The solution is Cartesian common-sense. But this takes effort. To see the real state of affairs involves thought, and yet the whole cultural tide as it sweeps in towards the millennium shore, is towards non-thought. We must, then, become masters of language so that our thought is crisp and clear, so that we can seek enlightenment both in our metaphysics and in our politics; so that we can use our human nature at its deepest level to resist the winds of oppressive social forces.