The aspidistra has crash landed
Wednesday, February 05, 2014
Miss Paine the Younger made me the perceptive gift of this book. I read Orwell's books and many of his essays at school, but knew nothing until now about the man himself. So influential were his words on my young mind that Shelden's biography explains me almost as much as his subject.
Orwell is one of few famous socialists I could have liked. There are many I know in everyday life and am not such a bigot as to discard, but I hold influential men to higher standards.
Those acquainted only with 1984 or Animal Farm might not even think of him now as a Socialist. Both books parody Soviet Communism with which most British Socialists (with reservations varying inversely with their immorality) sympathised. So, in fact did Orwell.
I think that if the USSR were conquered by some foreign country the working class everywhere would lose heart, for the time being at least, and the ordinary stupid capitalists would be encouraged ... I want the existence of democratic Socialism in the West to exert a regenerative influence upon Russia.
He thought the Russian Revolution good, but that it had been hijacked by the power hungry. He was sage enough to realise those are the very people likely to lead revolutions but naive enough to imagine
that revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert and chuck out their leaders as soon as the latter have done their job
How could an intelligent man harbour such a fantasy? Any chucking 'the masses' did would be at the suggestion of leaders out to replace the revolution's victors! Surely any fool could see they would not only be nastier and more cunning but at least as power-hungry? Socialism, whether achieved by revolution or democracy, requires enormous state power. Such power will attract the scum of the Earth. That's not a bug, it's a feature.
The most interesting passages, scattered through the book, deal with Orwell's romantic imaginings of a democratic Socialist England, somehow untinged by authoritarianism. His biographer writes that
The England that Orwell declares his loyalty to is a place where tyranny cannot easily establish a foothold because of the deep commitment to what he calls 'private liberty', by which he means 'the liberty to have a home of your own, to do what you like in your spare time, to choose your own amusements instead of having them chosen for you from above'.
He loved freedom as much as the fieriest modern Libertarian but, economic illiterate that he was, failed to see that the only alternative to incentive is force. He imagined a society in which no-one could earn more than ten times than the lowest paid, but gave no thought for the violence required to prevent them earning more or seize their surplus. Not only did he think men had only to be shown what was right in order to do it, he ludicrously imagined that, in a free society, all would meekly accept a single view of 'what was right'. He romantically imagined
... a specifically English Socialist movement, one that appeals to the English character, and is not tainted by Marxism which was a German theory interpreted by Russians and unsuccessfully transplanted to England. His Socialism would not be 'doctrinaire, nor even logical', and would leave 'anachronisms and loose ends everywhere' - the lion and the unicorn will still be resplendent on the soldiers' cap buttons, the old judge will still wear 'his ridiculous horsehair wig.'
In his day successful Socialism was perhaps, if your understanding of economics was sufficiently limited, vaguely plausible. He probably expected the industries nationalised in 1946, for example, to perform much better under state control. There is no such excuse for Labourites today.
Most of all, he and his generation failed to grasp that if the state is player rather than referee in the national game, it will soon no longer be 'cricket'. Pretty much everything he hoped for was achieved by post-Orwellian Labour governments, with disastrous economic consequences. In the process "the English character" he so admired has been profoundly damaged.
Part of me, liking this well-meaning corduroyed buffoon of a provincial schoolmaster as I do, is glad he didn't live to see what nonsense it all was. Part of me wishes he had not died so young so that he could have satirised it with all his skill.
Yes, I suppose so - the basic moral law - what would you do if you loved (no romo) this person.
I'm not sure that that is vague or difficult to reason with - though it is of course difficult to put into practice, which is something else entirely.
Why do you imagine that "love" is any harder to reason with than "self-interest"?
Posted by: Mark | Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 03:36 AM
The site automatically resolves links so post away. If they are long though, please use an URL shortener as they tend to throw off the formatting.
Posted by: Tom | Monday, February 10, 2014 at 04:51 PM
Presumably you are advocating the overturning of established property rights on the basis of some moral law or other? I can't say you've successfully articulated it yet. God help us if it's "love" as there is no reasoning with such vagueness. You won't be surprised to learn that I am happy to leave love entirely unregulated. It's a great phenomenon, but it's really not the business of anyone but the parties concerned.
Posted by: Tom | Monday, February 10, 2014 at 02:01 PM
Property not being a fundamental moral law doesn't mean that there are *no* fundamental moral laws on which there can be widespread agreement -
love, for example?
Posted by: Mark | Monday, February 10, 2014 at 12:13 AM
If x is just a construct of society and I, Mark, speak for society then I can do anything to you that I please and you will not even have the right to feel wronged.
You excel yourself, maestro.
Posted by: Tom | Sunday, February 09, 2014 at 07:47 PM
This too -
"So Kuznicki's one of those libertarians? I love his comments above - he sounds like one of those creationists who fights evolution teeth bared because they've convinced themselves that if even a jot of it is true, then Everyone Is A Lie and the universe is nothing but darkness and pain.
If property is just a construct of society and not a Real Moral Thing, then suddenly it just becomes a discussion about what degrees of distribution are acceptable and work best based off of what we know. There's no moral high ground to call others' thieves for taking what you consider Yours."
Posted by: Mark | Sunday, February 09, 2014 at 03:35 PM
Is it possible to post links?
Google "Libertarian Julian Sanchez Agrees Non-Aggression Is Circular"
I read it and thought of you.
Posted by: Mark | Sunday, February 09, 2014 at 03:11 PM
http://mattbruenig.com/2014/02/01/libertarian-julian-sanchez-agrees-non-aggression-is-circular/
http://dbzer0.com/blog/why-the-non-aggression-principle-is-useless-as-a-moral-guideline/
http://www.demos.org/blog/1/29/14/what-world-following-non-aggression-principle-looks
http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2013/12/the-dialectical-impotence-of-the-non-aggression-principle-redux/
Posted by: Mark | Sunday, February 09, 2014 at 03:10 PM
I shall treasure that confession!
In a "Libertarian paradise" we would ignore you gently, nodding and smiling as you expounded your differing view. As long as you observed the non-aggression principle, I would buy you the odd pint and maybe take you fishing because I have become quite fond of you. In short, you would present no problem until you tried to use force. We would all be armed and one of our exceptions to the non aggression principle is self defence. So very rapidly you wouldn't present a problem again.
Next question. B^)
Posted by: Tom | Friday, February 07, 2014 at 03:19 PM
How could an intelligent man harbour such a fantasy?
Very easily - it's the filter which cut out information to him which would modify that view.
Posted by: james higham | Friday, February 07, 2014 at 01:12 PM
Yes, that's right, and who knows, maybe I am mad - so what on earth is the solution to the problem I pose to the Libertarian paradise, if not force?
Posted by: Mark | Friday, February 07, 2014 at 12:33 PM
Your 'differing view' is that you want to expropriate violently rights that have been settled for centuries. Common Law won't go back more than fifteen years yet you want to revisit the original acquisition of property in the Middle Ages and sweep aside every transaction since. If I were to argue that every descendant of Aryan invaders from India should be repatriated there, leaving those descended from the aborigines in sole possession of all European riches, that might be a 'differing view' too but it would be on a level with that of a chap in an asylum whose 'differing view' was that he was Napoleon. Settled property rights defended by law are the single most important factor in a free society. Countries without them are never prosperous. From pure envy you want to destroy the reason why these shabby little islands have long been a top ten economy.
Posted by: Tom | Friday, February 07, 2014 at 06:54 AM
"economic illiterate that he was, failed to see that the only alternative to incentive is force. "
What about those things on which people have directly contradictory and irreconcilable views/goals?
For example differing views on property rights.
Posted by: Mark | Friday, February 07, 2014 at 05:20 AM
In a libertarian free society no one would be imposing a single view. Nice try but still no support here for your fetish for violence.
Posted by: Tom | Thursday, February 06, 2014 at 08:53 AM
If you have a free society with open borders and no exchange controls and you intend to pillage a productive minority, they (and/or their money ) are going to run. He was dreaming in thinking it could be done without use of force.
Posted by: Tom | Thursday, February 06, 2014 at 08:49 AM
XX he ludicrously imagined that, in a free society, all would meekly accept a single view of 'what was right'. XX
You do not need "all", you just need a majority of idiots, then you call it "Democracy" and everything is just fine and Dandy.
Posted by: Furor Teutonicus | Thursday, February 06, 2014 at 05:27 AM
Hang on...
"Not only did he think men had only to be shown what was right in order to do it, he ludicrously imagined that, in a free society, all would meekly accept a single view of 'what was right'."
As far as I am aware, that is exactly *your* political position . If men will not accept a single view of what is right then a degree of force is neccessary in society - to support any social structure will require a degree of force, its only a question of how much.
Posted by: Mark | Thursday, February 06, 2014 at 02:14 AM
I'm not sure that it is - democracy doesn't requires that everyone in a society agree with its rules - in fact , a political system clearly couldn't be constructed in such a way.
So, you might not like democratic socialism, or fear for its consequences - but thar doesn't make it an oxymoron.
Posted by: Mark | Thursday, February 06, 2014 at 02:07 AM
I agree entirely. People still believe in it today, ludicrously. I meant to quote TS Eliot's rejection letter for Animal Farm. He worked for a publisher and said - incredibly -
"Your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm .... What was needed (someone might argue) was not more communism but more public spirited pigs"
That still seems to be the Guardian-reader's dream; more public-spirited pigs.
Posted by: Tom | Thursday, February 06, 2014 at 12:57 AM
"democratic Socialist"
Something of an oxymoron as you can have one or the other but you cannot have both. Socialism requires substantial redistribution of wealth that relies on the force of the state to implement in the quantity and the desired manner that achieves equality. It requires an increasingly reluctant provider of that wealth to cooperate so has to use ever more force and become authoritarian. In this endeavour a bye product of course is that wealth creation itself is slowly shut down then the only recourse is for the state is to take over the means of production. This changes the incentive of those directing production from the making of profits to one of reaching targets. To reach targets in turn requires the state to punish those who do not achieve those targets so authoritarianism takes another notch forward and democracy another one backwards. The USSR of course took these steps in one great leap however the West is doing it more slowly but will eventually arrive there if the left are not stopped now in driving us along this path.
Posted by: Antisthenes | Wednesday, February 05, 2014 at 06:31 PM