In the course of doing research for a forthcoming post on the libertarian case against corporations, I happened to be reviewing the discussion at Catallarchy on libertarian critiques of progressive regulatory corporatism. One comment in response to what I considered a well-reasoned deconstruction of the typical libertarian argument stood out to me:
That is a key insight of libertarian democrats--markets are arbitrary human creations, and whenever we as a society deem it appropriate for the common good we should create new ones, as with the patent system or with tradeable carbon credits. There's a lot to be said against that, but I'll limit myself to making the point that there is no "we as a society".
Now, I understand why libertarians say this: they want to prevent the sacrifice of the individual to the mob, realized either by "anarchy" or in the form of the "people's" state, be it socialist or democratic. Certainly I've invoked this kind of language in the past, as least in the first months following my reading of Atlas Shrugged.
But this oversimplification promotes the appearance of sheer boneheadedness: quite obviously (as the original Catallarchy commeter retorts) "we" exist, and "we" are commonly referred to as a "society". In fact, the whole body of libertarian thought is concerned with empowering voluntary associations - i.e., "society " - at the expense of the coercive state. Engaging in these cool one-liner mind trips is fine, as long as you're clear about what you mean.
What the Randroid obviously means, of course, is that the use of the term "we as a society" is not useful in a certain context. It's not that society is not some illusion devoid of physical being, but rather that it has no power to express any sort of will or preference. Therefore, it's useless to talk about what society chooses or prefers. Society doesn't have the capacity for agency that an individual does; therefore, society can't express preferences in any absolute sense like an individual can.
I agree wholeheartedly with the statement, so clarified: society is composed of individuals, and it is the individuals that act, make decisions, hold beliefs, assume responsibility, etc. It is a ridiculous and dangerous notion to locate the source of any responsibility or activity in some nebulous entity called "society". Societies, properly understood, don't act - they are abstractions, containers for aggregating individual decisions, actions, and responsibilities into useful generalizations. But just because they can be so aggregated doesn't mean that container has the same qualities as the constituent parts.
Indeed, there is something irreducable about the individual. To me it is a mystery that there exists within man a locus of sentience that we have not been able to reproduce through decomposition or aggregation. That, however, doesn't mean that there is nothing to be said of society as an entity, a process, or a dynamic which individuals can identify and with which they can engage. As we find novel ways of expressing the intangible nature of society, such as the internet, it makes sense to make use of the abstractions inherent in such study.
However, we must be careful to address society's actual qualities, characteristics, and features - rather than superimposing upon the aggregate qualities of the constituent. The left libertarian and anarchist depend upon this organizing mechanism to inform the scope of possible human liberty independent of the coercive state or the cruel mob. We should better understand society and its possibilities rather than dismissing its existence or usefulness out of hand.
I believe this can be accomplished as part of the study of the individual. After all, it is most often within the context of society that the individual has a meaningful, empirically understandable existence. Understanding people is the core study of anarchism in the end, and it is only from a unique articulation of human nature and dignity that any argument can be made against moral domination.
UPDATE: Constant responds to my critique, and I to his retort. A sample:
Read this articleAny well-reasoned deconstruction of libertarian arguments must display awareness of what I have just pointed out, since it is so very basic.Good reasoning doesn't imply a person will not make mistakes - it simply means that when a person DOES make mistakes, they will be clear, and a person will be honest enough to admit them. Introducing arrogance into the equation works against honest debate. THAT's what I have a problem with.
