Читать книгу Demanding the Impossible - Peter Marshall - Страница 52

Herbert Spencer, a father of modern sociology, developed a very different organic and evolutionary philosophy from Mill’s, but he shared the same concern for individual freedom and fear of excessive government. In two classics of Victorian political thought, Social Statics (1851) and The Man versus The State (1884), he took up the defence of individuality and severely restricted the legitimate limits of the State. They were sufficiently libertarian to impress Kropotkin, who suggested that he had arrived at the same conclusions as Proudhon and Bakunin; and Emma Goldman, who thought that Spencer’s formulation of liberty was the most important on the subject.¹³

Spencer tried like his contemporary Social Darwinists to ground his moral and political beliefs in a philosophy of nature. He was one of the first to apply Darwin’s theory of natural evolution to social life and coined the phrase ‘the survival of the fittest’. In his view, just as in nature the ‘fittest’ survive in the struggle for existence, so in society competition enables the best to emerge. But where Darwin defined the ‘fittest’ to be those most adapted to their environment, Spencer saw fitness in terms of the most successful individuals. The fittest societies are those of the fittest individuals.

At the same time, Spencer argued that societies operate like living organisms, growing more complex as their parts become more mutually dependent. Since they are inherently self-equilibrating, they need the struggles of their members for their further evolution. But where struggle took a military form in feudal society, Spencer would like to see the combination of competition and co-operation prevalent in industrial society take its place. In addition, he was confident that evolution operated as a kind of ‘invisible hand’ transforming private interest into the general good.¹⁴ The long term direction of evolution was from egotism to altruism. In the process, social life would achieve the greatest development of individuality together with the greatest degree of sociability.

Drawing on contemporary anthropology, Spencer argued like Kropotkin that societies originally regulated their affairs by custom. On the other hand, ‘Government is begotten of aggression and by aggression.’¹⁵ A state of war established the authority of a chief who eventually developed into a king. Subsequent history was the record of aggressive war between States, and of class war within States. While all progress has depended on the efforts of individuals to achieve their private ends, governments have always thwarted the growth of society and never been able to enhance it. Rather than establishing rights, as Bentham argued, governments have merely recognized existing claims, especially the claim to property. Spencer concludes from all this that the future function of true liberalism will be that of ‘putting a limit to the power of Parliaments’.¹⁶ Like Mill, but from his own evolutionary perspective, he prophesized ‘that form of society towards which we are progressing’ is ‘one in which government will be reduced to the smallest amount possible, and freedom increased to the greatest amount possible.’¹⁷

Spencer was equally critical of the socialism and liberalism of his day. He was hostile to representative government which he considered inferior to monarchical government because it results in the tyranny of the majority, the triumph of mediocrity, and inefficiency of administration. It is best only for securing justice, and worst for all other purposes.¹⁸ The power of parliaments should therefore be restricted: ‘The great political superstition of the present is the divine right of parliaments.’¹⁹

As for socialism, which he knew in its Marxist form via H. M. Hyndman, Spencer declared that ‘all socialism involves slavery’. The essence of slavery is to make everything a possession; under socialism the citizen becomes owned by the State:

Judge what must under such conditions become the despotism of a graduated and centralized officialism, holding in its hands the resources of the community, and having behind it whatever amount of force it finds requisite to carry out its decrees and maintain what it calls order. Well may Prince Bismarck display leanings towards State-socialism.²⁰

Spencer considered existing societies to be of ‘the semi-militant semi-industrial type’, whereas genuine freedom could only exist in an industrial society based on voluntary co-operation and competition. The socialists however wanted to recreate a military society based on compulsory cooperation. If they got their way, the ultimate result would be like the rigid and tyrannical society of ancient Peru.²¹

Spencer’s criticisms of existing liberalism and socialism were made, like Mill’s, from the point of view of individual freedom. In his political theory, he consistently opposed what he called ‘Over-Legislation‘(1853), so much so that T. H. Huxley accused him of ‘Administrative Nihilism’.²² In reply, Spencer claimed that the term might apply to Humboldt, whom he had never read, but certainly not to him.²³ Nevertheless, Spencer looked to a society in which laissez-faire, economic competition, voluntary co-operation, and the division of labour would ensure autonomy and general well-being.

But although Spencer pitches the individual against the State, he does not call for its abolition. As Kropotkin observed, he does not endorse all the conclusions about government which ought to be drawn from his system of philosophy.²⁴ Spencer’s individualism was formulated in The Proper Sphere of Government (1842) where he argued like Humboldt and Mill that the duty of the State only lies in the protection of its citizens against each other. It may direct its citizens for security – both against external hostility and internal aggression – and for the enforcement of contract. But it should confer nothing beyond the opportunity to compete freely. Its function is ‘simply to defend the natural rights of men – to protect person and property, to prevent the aggression of the powerful on the weak; in a word, to administer Justice’.²⁵

Spencer wanted to make the State more efficient as a ‘negatively regulative’ body in preventing aggression and administering justice. Unlike Proudhon (whom he mentions), Spencer held that

within its proper limits governmental action is not simply legitimate but all-important … Not only do I contend that the restraining power of the State over individuals, and bodies or classes of individuals, is requisite, but I have contended that it should be exercised much more effectually, and carried out much further, than at present.²⁶

Later in his life, Spencer gave the State a more positive role in promoting the moral law, that is the ‘law of equal freedom’ in which ‘every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal rights of every other man.’²⁷

Spencer was as far removed from socialism as he was from genuine anarchism. He may have been a bold critic of the excessive power of the State, but he remained true to his background of middle-class provincial radicalism.²⁸ He feared the demands of the working class which he felt would lead to ‘degeneracy’, and what is even worse, to ‘communism and anarchism’. Any attempt to bring about equal return for labour, he argued, leads to communism – then would come ‘anarchism and a return to the unrestrained struggle for life, as among brutes’.²⁹

Spencer undoubtedly anticipates modern anarcho-capitalists in his individualism, his economic laissez-faire, and his distrust of the powers of the State. Possessive individualism is the final premiss of his political thought.³⁰ For all his fine libertarian expressions, Spencer ultimately remains a spokesman for early industrial capitalism rather than modern anarchism. But while it may be a small irony of history that his tomb opposite Karl Marx’s resplendent bust in Highgate Cemetery, London, is neglected and overgrown, his libertarian vision still lives on.