Category: Individualism

In my last post I explained that the source of an ideological system’s failure is never individuals acting in their self-interest. However, I did note that a source of failure can be individuals whose causes of unease aren’t proper for the system.

Consider the Soviet Union. Many self-proclaimed communists point to Stalin’s rise to power as the point where the country transitioned from a communist system to a corruption of communism. When Stalin came to power he eliminated anybody he perceived to be a challenge to his power. One of his sources of unease was obviously the thought of losing power. A communist system cannot succeed if the individuals in power are made uneasy by losing power because the goal of communism according to Marx is the transition to a stateless society.

Consider the United States of America. Many self-proclaimed capitalists point to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency as the point where the country transitioned from a capitalist system to a corruption of capitalism. Roosevelt came into power during the Great Depression and implemented a number of socialist programs in an apparent attempt to right the economy. A source of his unease was the continuation of the economic conditions of the Great Depression, which he felt could be corrected by a move away from capitalism. A capitalist system cannot succeed if the individuals in power are made uneasy by economic downturns because those downturns are a necessary response to resources being misallocated.

As I noted in my previous post sources of unease are unique to each individual. This brings us to a major reason why ideological systems fail. No single ideological system can remove or alleviate the uneases of every individual. Communism cannot remove the unease felt by a capitalist when his business is taken and given to his employees. Capitalism cannot remove the unease felt by employees who are not being paid the full value of their labor by a employer. Most proponents of an ideological system recognize this, but fail to grasp the ramifications.

When an attempt to implement an ideological system on a massive scale is made, individuals who are somehow made uneasy by that system (at least in its pure ideological form) will strive to undermine it. Attempts to counteract those individuals will make other individuals uneasy. For example, trying to purge anti-communists after a communist revolution will likely make many of the friends and family members of those anti-communists uneasy. They may attempt to alleviate their unease by undermining the communist system. Attempts at repressing them will just continue the cycle. Eventually so many people are attempting to alleviate their uneasy by undermining the system that its failure can no longer be denied.

Most self-proclaimed communists refer to the economic system of the United States as capitalism. Most self-proclaimed capitalists point out that the economic system of the United States is actually cronyism. Meanwhile, most self-proclaimed capitalists refer to the economic system of China as communist and most self-proclaimed communists claim that what is implemented in China isn’t real communism.

This is how most arguments about ideological systems go. The critic points to a supposed implementation as proof that the system is trash and the advocate rebuts by claiming that the supposed implementation is a corrupted form of the system, not an actual implementation. If you then prod the advocate about the source of the corruption, they will almost always claim that the source is greedy individuals acting in their self-interest rather than the interests of all.

Is that true? Is the flaw in every ideological system individuals acting in their self-interest instead of the interests of all? Could humanity enjoy a utopian existence under communism if individuals would stop being greedy? Would capitalism not transition into cronyism if individuals worried about what is best for others instead of what is best for themselves? No. It’s not true because all individuals act in their self-interest. It is impossible to do otherwise.

My argument is seldom put forth because many, if not most, people make the mistake of believing self-interest is synonymous with acquisition of power and/or material wealth. But that’s a gross misunderstanding of self-interest. As Ludwig von Mises points out:

Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness1. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things. He would have neither wishes nor desires; he would be perfectly [p. 14] happy. He would not act; he would simply live free from care.

But to make a man act, uneasiness and the image of a more satisfactory state alone are not sufficient. A third condition is required: the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness. In the absence of this condition no action is feasible. Man must yield to the inevitable. He must submit to destiny.

When an individual acts, they seek to remove or alleviate a felt uneasiness. Unease is unique to the individual. What makes one individual uneasy may make another content. Consider a hypothetical love triangle where one individual, who I will call Julius, desires the murder of another, who I will call Gnaeus, because he won the affection of a mutual love interest, who I will call Scribonia. Gnaeus would be made content by the murder of Julius, but Scribonia would be made uneasy by the murder (Julius would probably be uneasy between the time the act or murder began and his death).

People often assume an act isn’t self-interested when they don’t know the source of unease that preceded the action. For example, one might mistake the act of an fire fighter running into a burning building to rescue somebody as an act against the fire fighter’s self-interest because it a cursory examination makes it seem that the fire fighter is causing themselves unease for the sake of another. But the sight or thought of another person suffering can (and probably for most people does) cause unease. The fire fighter may have gone into the burning building because they sought to remove or alleviate their unease of the thought of another individual burning to death. Or they may have instead gone into the burning building because they knew failing to do so would result in their termination from the job and the thought of losing their job caused them unease. Either way the act was in the fire fighter’s self-interest.

I’m sure one clever reader is saying to themselves, “Chris, you said acting against my self-interest is impossible, but I’m going to prove you wrong by stabbing myself in the gut!” Following through with the action would not prove me wrong because the action would be taken to remove or alleviate the unease caused by the thought of me being correct.

Thus the flaw in an ideological system cannot be a failure of individuals to act against their own self-interest. An argument could certainly be made that the primary flaw in an ideological system is individuals whose causes of unease aren’t proper for the system. That, however, is a different argument entirely.

I’ve recently started reading the works of Renzo Novatore, and Italian individualist anarchist. His writings on anarchism can almost be seen as a sequel to the writings of Max Stirner. One of his more famous quotes struck a chord with me.

Anarchy is not a social form, but a method of individualization. No society will concede to me more than a limited freedom and a well-being that it grants to each of its members. But I am not content with this and want more. I want all that I have the power to conquer. Every society seeks to confine me to the august limits of the permitted and the prohibited. But I do not acknowledge these limits, for nothing is forbidden and all is permitted to those who have the force and the valor. Consequently, anarchy, which is the natural liberty of the individual freed from the odious yoke of spiritual and material rulers, is not the construction of a new and suffocating society. It is a decisive fight against all societies-christian, democratic, socialist, communist, etc, etc. Anarchism is the eternal struggle of a small minority of aristocratic outsiders against all societies which follow one another on the stage of history.

When I started entertaining the idea of a stateless society, I spent a lot of time imagining what such a society would look like. I did this in part because I wanted to understand if anarchism could work and in part because the first question a statist asks an anarchist is how could [insert any state provided good or service] exist without government? The statist usually pats themselves on the back because they think that their question is both creative and unanswerable, but in reality the question merely demonstrates their lack of creativity.

However, as I traveled the path of individual anarchism I encountered increasingly radical authors. Friedrich Nietzsche introduced me to the concept of master and slave morality and the idea that those who follow a slave morality aren’t interested in making slaves into masters, but in making masters into slaves. I began to notice this phenomenon everywhere, especially amongst those who say that they want absolute equality for all. The equality they strive for isn’t one where all individuals hold absolute power, but one where all individuals are subjected to the whims of others.

After Nietzsche I came across Max Stirner. Stirner introduced me to the concept of spooks: imaginaries mistakenly treated as real. These imaginaries are most commonly used to restrain the individual. Whenever somebody claims that we live in a society or refers to a social contract, they’re arguing that the existence of the society and its accompanying contract are greater than any individual and thus every individual must subject themselves to them. But the concepts of society and social contracts are make-believe. They cannot think, reason, or act. As Ludwig von Mises said, “All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.”

If society is a spook, then imaging an anarchist society is an exercise in creating fiction. If the goal of anarchism isn’t the creation of a society, then what is it? Now I want to return to Novatore, because his quote about anarchism explains what I’ve had a difficult time explaining. Anarchism by his definition can almost be thought of as anti-society. Whereas the concept of society attempts to restrain the individual, anarchism attempts to empower the individual.

As Novatore notes, the concept of society always offers a limited freedom. Whenever one imagines a society, they imagine prohibitions. The monarchist imagines a benevolent and just ruler establishing sensible restrictions that benefit all. The constitutionalist imagines a document written by wise men explaining methods for justly creating new restrictions. The communist imagines worker collectives deciding new restrictions by majority votes.

Anarchism viewed as anti-society can be thought of as a refutation of restrictions placed upon the individual by coming to the realization that society doesn’t exist. Just as society is an imaginary, so are its laws. George W. Bush was accused of referring to the Constitution of the United States as just a “goddamn piece of paper.” This accusation lead to a great deal of outrage, but the statement he was accused of uttering is correct. The Constitution is just a piece of paper. It has no power to think, reason, or act and it cannot restrain an individual from thinking, reasoning, or acting. This is true of all laws. Laws cannot stop an individual from murdering, raping, or stealing anymore than the boogeyman.

The pursuit of anti-society is the pursuit of exorcising spooks from your mind. It is the pursuit of breaking the chains which you’ve placed upon yourself by allowing yourself to believe that imaginary concepts can control your actions. It is the pursuits of the realization that those imaginary concepts aren’t real and therefore have no power over you.

Based on what I’ve written so far you probably assume that anti-society is a synonym for social Darwinism, a world where the strong prey upon the weak. It’s a fair assumption for one who has spent their entire life being taught and subsequently believes that societal restrictions prevent the strong from preying on the weak. In practice the opposite is true. Societal restrictions are established by the strong. Those who are called kings, representatives, and the majority are the conquerors. Those who are called subjects, citizens, and the minority are the conquered. The idea of society is the idea of the strong establishing restrictions for the weak to follow.

Anti-society has only been pursued by a minority of individuals. If pursued on a massive scale, anti-society might do a better job of preventing murder, rape, theft, and other activities you likely associate with unlimited individual freedom. A world where everybody has a nuclear weapon might be less predatory than a world where only a handful of individuals do. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction did dissuade the United States and the Soviet Union from entering a direct war with one another. Or it might not. It’s impossible to know and, if I’m being honest, I don’t care.

What I know for certain is that I’m no longer interested in a limited freedom. I want to break the chains I’ve placed upon myself. I want unlimited freedom. Perhaps you do too. If so, I welcome you to join me on my journey towards anti-society. If not, I respect your choice and will not insist that you follow me. But I’m going and nothing you say or do will stop me.

I recently came across an image on Facebook that sums up the true nature of rights.

To quote George Carlin, “Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but there’s no such thing as rights. They’re imaginary. We made them up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio, Mother Goose, shit like that. Rights are an idea. They’re just imaginary.”

If you ask 10 different people to list the rights every human being has, you’ll almost certainly end up with 10 different lists. This is because rights are a concept that exist solely in our heads. One person may believe that each individual has a right to keep and bear arms. Another person may believe that each individual has a right to safety, which they may also believe trumps any claims that there is a right to keep and bear arms.

I’m fond of saying that you have what rights you can convince others to acknowledge. You only have a “right” to free speech if you can convince others not to interfere with your speech. You only have a “right” to a refuse a search if you can convince others not to search you. When proponents of the Second Amendment write or call politicians, they’re trying to convince those politicians to agree with the concept that each individual has a right to keep and bear arms. While most proponents of the Second Amendment won’t admit that there really isn’t a right to keep and bear arms, they acknowledge this fact through their actions of requesting that politicians not violate their right (any further). Less a gun control advocate jump up and scream, “Ah ha,” let me also point out that proponents of the First Amendment, which many gun control advocates claim to be, acknowledge the fact that they don’t have a right to free speech every time they request that politicians not violating their right (any further).

Rights, like laws, may exist on paper but their existence stops there. If you can convince others to respect your concept of rights, then your concept of rights perhaps won’t be violated. But if you fail to convince others to respect your rights, your concept of rights will be violated.

Believe it or not, every once in a while somebody will ask me how I know so much about a given topic. My answer to them is always that I’ve read a book on the topic:

If you want to be stronger, more powerful, and the driving force in your own life; if you want not to be tossed by every wind, irritated by every opinion, persuaded by every protest, losing your self in the presence of dynamic people, read more books.

The more concepts, metaphors, and ideas you fill yourself with, the broader your conceptual and verbal language, the better you know yourself and navigate a world populated with the selves of others.

If you don’t dive into long-form ideas regularly, you won’t know how to think them or respond to them.

I’ve been told that I’m a bastard in debates. I don’t attribute that to my knowledge or skill but to other people’s lack of knowledge and skill. Most debates today seem to take the form of parties throwing soundbites or memes at each other. An anarchist will argue that governments need to be eliminated entirely and a statist will respond by asking who will build the roads. Neither party will likely go beyond those soundbites. However, if either party is well read on the topic, they will have a significant advantage because they’ll have the foundational knowledge that both soundbites are built on. Having such familiarity with their argument and their opponent’s argument will allow them to utterly crush their opponent.

YouTube and Wikipedia are great for general overviews but if you really want to arm yourself with detailed knowledge, you should read books.