It is neither demagoguery nor populism, nor nostalgia, to note that our era is marked in a singular way, and not without disastrous consequences, by the possibility, even for intellectuals, of multiplying internal contradictions within their own writings. There is also a widespread refusal on rolling news channels and social media to give prominence to expertise, hence the notable fact that anyone can now write anything and still have a potentially significant audience. Yet in intellectual matters, the coherence and rigour of discourse, the use of reason as a tool, is to thought what the military medal is to the soldier, that is, the only distinction that matters, counts, and sets one apart.
Applying these preliminaries to the study of social order immediately leads us to deduce and propose the following framework for interpretation: when it comes to the question of systems and structures that enable procedures to be found to harmonise and coordinate the scattered choices of agents, there are two solutions, and only two that are theoretically conceivable. Communism has an internal consistency that cannot be disputed. This is a different matter from the question of the results of the procedures chosen by this system. Imagining social order in advance as an intellectual construct of the new man and the perfect society by a few minds, that is, being a supporter of a constructed order that is not the result of the free choices of individuals, is one possible solution.
The system is then entirely based on centralisation and a single party led by a few individuals who are supposed to have the clarity and insight to choose for and on behalf of others. In the economic order, to answer the three classic questions formulated (pedagogically) by Samuelson–namely, what, how and for whom to produce?–communists use the toolbox of planning, usually on a five-year basis, deciding on the needs of individuals, then on the combination of factors of production in order to produce the goods and services chosen previously, and finally on the distribution of the purchasing power necessary to acquire the goods and services proposed by the planner.
The fact that the results of these choices hic and nunc, urbi et orbi, have been disastrous both in terms of freedoms and desperately empty store shelves does not change anything in terms of consistency. Gulags and shortages simply mean that these solutions are not the right ones, and that the philosophical foundations on which the decisions were based are flawed, which is obviously of crucial importance in validating, conversely, solutions based on spontaneous order, decentralization, the periphery, the market, the price system, free trade, profit, respect for contracts, the eminent role of law—in short, freedom, responsibility, and private property. So much so that, if we reason correctly, we are led to believe that these system options are so clear-cut that there are really only two coherent and intellectually tenable solutions. Either one is in favour of centralisation, constructed order, and planning, i.e., socialism, or one is in favour of the periphery, spontaneous order, and the market, i.e., libertarianism.
One of the major manifestations of contemporary confusion is to imagine that something can simultaneously be and not be. But in fact, there are only two tenable positions in terms of the mind. Either the state is a benevolent institution, promoting the common good, necessary because of the choice of violence between individuals, and the fact that they would prefer war to peace. Man would be a wolf to man (to quote Hobbes), and to separate the violent individuals, a neutral force (accepted by society) is needed to prevent Cains from killing Abels.
Furthermore, the state, an institution promoting the common good, would play a major role, according to many contemporary minds, through its interventions to restore justice where the results of spontaneous market order would create morally unbearable inequalities.
Contrary to what hasty and impatient minds believe, the Zucman tax has been a considerable success, not in terms of parliamentary votes, of course, but, more importantly, in terms of public opinion. The term “ultra-rich,” which is obviously stigmatising, is used by everyone from the National Rally to La France Insoumise, with each party vying to come up with the best way to “punish” the ultra-rich through tax engineering. Here again, appearances are deceiving. Intellectually speaking, Piketty won, and Bernard Arnault lost. According to two thinkers as influential as Keynes and Hayek—this is their only point of agreement—ideas have consequences.
So, if the state is simultaneously benevolent, a reducer of violence, and a bringer of justice, it must be given all possible powers in all areas and on all territories. Why allow the market to introduce distortions, inequalities, poor choices regarding future layoffs, and human and planetary destruction through the misguided choices of ill-intentioned and malicious individuals, such as entrepreneurs, whose only criterion for maximisation and optimisation is profit, either by making consumers pay more for what they should pay less for, or by exploiting the labour force of employees?
According to a second assumption though, after obtaining a monopoly on the production of law and a monopoly on legal violence, the state has always been responsible for capturing an increasing portion of our labor, for bloody acts of arbitrariness, for catastrophes, particularly through the outbreak of wars, either to expand its territory, that is, to enslave other peoples to the decisions of the men of the state, or to give concrete form to deadly ideologies, of which the 20th century is unfortunately the archetype. To cite just two events from its record, from the Greeks to the present day: 11.5 million deaths during the First World War and 55 million during the Second World War. An objective mind will readily concede that the crimes of the mafia or serial killers are really child’s play compared to those of Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, not to mention Pol Pot, and a cohort of mass murderers who were all, without exception, men of the state. Not to mention that in the name of the homeland, but with the posthumous joy of having their names engraved on war memorials, men of the state take our children (beware those who refuse by deserting) and send them to their deaths for causes that may no longer exist the next day. (For example, French children died in Algeria between 1954 and 1962, only for it to be ultimately concluded that this was a mistake, and that Algeria was not French, but should be returned to the native Algerians).
If the state is as harmful and dangerous as has just been described, it is undoubtedly absurd to allow it to intervene in our lives, to let it develop as it has done over the last century and a half, insinuating itself into our lives to the point of suggesting, even in democracies, the creation of a kind of ministry of truth. To parody Lenin and his famous work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, the Ministry of Truth in democracy, in the form of an agency for the accreditation or regulation of information, would be the highest stage of oppression by the state, that is, at best an authoritarian regime, at worst a totalitarian regime.
As many readers of this article know, it was Walter Eucken and Daniel Villey who demonstrated conclusively and irrefutably that the choice of system is irreducibly dichotomous. It is a mistake to imagine that one can be a proponent of both methodological individualism and holism. When it comes to economics, one could be sympathetic to both planning and market-based solutions.
If we now move from the theoretically conceivable (which is crucially important for knowing how to think) to the practically achievable, there may be some regulated activities in a market economy, provided that they are perfectly circumscribed and small in scale. Similarly, in a state-controlled economy, there may be some areas of freedom. But logically, one cannot use pure rationality to go against the internal logic of systems. Either freedom is the principle that guides, directs, and orders the actions of individuals, or it is a central authority and a plan. It is EITHER/OR, not BOTH/AND. It is exactly the same when it comes to understanding human and social phenomena. These areas can be approached either by studying the logic of free individual human behaviour or by studying cohorts, groups, classes, corporations, and corporations. Here too, and again, one choice or the other prevails, not a kind of mix, with “a little more of this, a little less of that” or vice versa, depending on the moment.
It is precisely the role of liberalism, one of its missions, perhaps even its glory, to reflect on the definition of the contours and contents of the science of freedom, and to have introduced clarity where, at the beginning of the 21st century, confusion and inconsistency too often reign.
It is necessary, essential, vital to present the science of freedom, that is to say, liberalism and the benefits of reason that lead to progress, in its most orthodox, purest, and uncompromising form. The idea that one can be a little liberal, a little interventionist, partly in favor of freedom but not too much, in favor of responsibility but with cushioning mechanisms, in favor of property but with all the exceptions necessary to implement the general interest, is a totally erroneous way of thinking, which can only lead to mediocre, if not catastrophic, results. Freedom, responsibility, private property, and the science of freedom must be defended “all or nothing,” not “a little or barely.” Either we are convinced that these ideas are good, in which case it is absurd that, intellectually and practically, whole swathes of human activity should escape the benefits of implementing the principles, processes, and practices of liberalism; or liberalism, that is, the science of freedom, is a major intellectual error and an ideology that serves the wealthy and powerful, crushing the small, the weak, and the humble, and then we must not accept even the slightest dose of this pernicious doctrine that so cruelly attacks human dignity.
Final submission
Intellectually, there are only two truly acceptable positions in terms of thought and reason. Either you are a complete and consistent liberal, and therefore a libertarian, or you are a collectivist. Obviously, in reality, pure systems can accommodate each other, but only marginally, with bits and pieces of the opposing system’s recommendations. But one cannot introduce strong and heavy constraints into a free society without offending the very spirit of the science of freedom, liberalism. Similarly, introducing elements of freedom into a centralised and collectivist regime quickly corrupts it to the point of threatening its existence. This is exactly what happened to communism when, starting in the 1980s, leaders introduced doses of flexibility and spaces of freedom, which individuals quickly rushed to expand. History teaches us that freedom is a virtuous phenomenon that grows stronger with practice. Systems of thought have their own internal logic and coherence. One cannot violate principles too much without altering the nature, spirit, and effectiveness of the philosophical and economic systems in question. The dichotomy of systems is an unavoidable phenomenon.
Daniel Villey expressed this with his elegant style and intellectual elevation in his short work, short only in size: À la recherche d’une doctrine économique (In Search of an Economic Doctrine), published in 1967. (Éditions Génin. Paris)
He expresses this clearly in the parable of the doll, which will serve as our conclusion
“Whatever alterations one might imagine to either system, their mutual combination could never give rise to a median, intermediate, neutral, organic, balanced form that would represent a third system, so to speak. A living man may have two wooden legs, two artificial arms, glass eyes, and plastic coronary arteries, but he is still a living man. You can stick real hair, real nails, and even real human skin on a doll, but it is still a doll. Thus, it is conceivable that in a market economy, certain sectors or functions are planned, and that in a planned economy, certain partial market processes are inserted. Nevertheless, the ultimate coordination of the economy as a whole will be the work of either the plan or the market: not both at the same time.” (op. cit., pp. 38-39).
To be a libertarian or a communist, you have to choose. Both positions are intellectually acceptable, even if in practice the results are obviously extraordinarily different, to the detriment of collective, totalitarian, centralised, planned solutions.
In another equally striking way, Dean Alfred Jourdan (1) writes in his book On the role of the state in the economic order or Political economy and Socialism, on page 2, these immortal lines:
“Depending on the side you take on this fundamental question (2), you are either an economist or a socialist. Therein lies an infallible touchstone.”
In other words, one has to choose between being an economist or a socialist.
(1) The essential work on Dean Alfred Jourdan, an eminent scholar and remarkable man, is that of my colleague and friend Professor Jean-Yves Naudet: Une histoire des économistes d’Aix-Marseille (A History of Economists of Aix-Marseille), PUAM. 2024. pages 78-87.
(2) That is, the role and place of the state in the economic order.
This text was originally published in French under the title: Être libertarien ou communiste il faut choisir
on partilibertarien.fr.
Translation has been done by Mr EMMANUEL MARTIN.
