“Simplify, simplify.”
—Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“Simplify.”
—me
The most profound truths are simple ones – sometimes deceptively so. Ayn Rand proclaimed, “A is A.” Mises explained that all human action purposeful and seeks to satisfy individual goals. Libertarianism rests on one principle, “the initiation of force is never justified.”
In his pivotal book, The State, the sociologist Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943) stated the basis of libertarian class analysis in fundamental terms. He presented two opposing principles upon which society functioned: the economic means and the political means.
The economic means consists collectively of the voluntary exchanges of labor and goods within society. It is a productive and peaceful means that rests upon trading for mutual benefit. The benefit could be monetary or a less tangible ‘good’ such as culture or knowledge. The political means consists of the appropriation of labor and goods. It is a non-productive and violent means that benefits only the appropriating party and harms the dispossessed.
The organization of the economic means was called “Society.” Oppenheimer wrote, “I mean by Society, the totality of concepts of all purely natural relations and institutions between man and man.” The organization of the political means was called “the State.” He wrote, “I mean by it that summation of privileges and dominating positions which are brought into being by extra-economic power.”
Society and the State were in basic and constant conflict with each other. This one insight forms the basis of libertarian class conflict and analysis. Do you belong to the productive and peaceful class, known as Society, or do you belong to the parasitic and violent class, known as The State?
Class analysis is usually associated with Karl Marx and subsequent Marxists who defined class affiliation based on a person’s relationship to the means of production; for example, you were a worker or a capitalist, a producer or a parasite (in the communist worldview). But Marx did not originate class analysis, as he himself acknowledged. This feat was accomplished by a group of 19th century radical liberal (that is, libertarian) historians who wrote in post-Napoleonic France: Charles Comte, Augustin Thierry and Charles Dunoyer. Their mentor was the great classical liberal economist J.B. Say.
These early class analysts also used a theoretical framework of the productive or exploited versus the parasitic or exploiter. But they defined productivity differently from the ensuing Marx. In an article entitled “Libertarian Class Analysis,” the theorist Sheldon Richman explained, “[T]he thinkers from whom Marx apparently learned about class analysis put in the productive class all who create utility through voluntary exchange. The “capitalist” (meaning in this context the owner of capital goods who is unconnected to the state) belongs in the industrious class along with workers.” The exploiter was The State or whomever else used force to strip the worker or the capitalist of his just rewards.
In a admirably accessible manner, Oppenheimer’s The State explains the dynamics set in motion by the political means. It is in the nature of parasites to multiple and drain ever more of the hosts’ resources. As the political means comes to dominate, those using the economic means see diminishing return from their productivity and, so, they have little incentive to produce beyond subsistence. Why should they labor to feed a thief? Society stagnates, leaving less for the parasite to siphon. And, so, inherent within the State is its own demise.
Oppenheimer saw this truth with singular clarity. It is ‘natural’ for man to sustain his life through work, profit and exchange. It is ‘unnatural’ for him to live parasitically and, so, the theft must be achieved through conquest, not consent. Because the benefits of such theft are attractive, some men organize into continuing States through which their thievery can be prolonged.
The State is not a noble or protective endeavor. It is not born from a social contract but through conquest. The Austrian economist Murray Rothbard stated, “the Oppenheimer vision of the State as always emerging from conquest and violence remains solidly intact, to strip away our last illusions about its alleged natural ‘beneficence’.” Thus the State is a vicious attack upon Society and upon human nature itself.
Oppenheimer may not have said it first but he said it best. He forged a theory of libertarian class analysis with an elegant simplicity that has made The State a classic since its publication in 1908. This is a beautifully written book.
