Liberty For All

by Starchild

Examine the motivations behind all the wars and other forms of mass aggression in human history, and four great forces stand out in stark relief: Nationalism, Racism, Religion, and Socialism. [1]

These forces are such powerful motivators that they have long induced the majority of human beings to embrace what they would otherwise naturally find unacceptable - authoritarian governments running their lives and stealing and killing in their names.

Government, or the State, has been the tool through which the latent destructive energy present in the impulses of Nationalism, Racism, Religion and Socialism is converted into warfare, ethnic cleansing, political tyranny, forced starvation, and the other terrible violations of human rights that have been responsible for so much suffering, particularly in the 20th century.

Few people will argue against the proposition that one of the four forces, Racism, is inherently evil. I am inclined to place a second, Nationalism, in the same category. More on this later. But Socialism and Religion are not inherently evil. [2] On their own, they can be sources of great comfort and result in many positive human actions. It is only in the hands of government that they automatically become cause for alarm.

Some of the worst State crimes have been perpetrated when more than one of these forces have merged into a single ideology. Three of them were present in the Third Reich - Nationalism, Socialism, and Racism. [3] Racism and Religion as government policy were the cause of many horrible abuses during the Colonial period. 

The communists pursued Socialism to such a degree that it practically became Religion. This is evidenced by the fact that communist regimes in the Soviet Union and elsewhere tried their best to destroy competing religious organizations like the Catholic Church, and to eliminate the belief in a higher power. [4]

Libertarians recognize that most governments still enforce Socialism to varying degrees. Certainly of the world’s national governments (i.e. those at the top of the governmental food chain), none dispute the idea that it’s OK to forcibly redistribute wealth or for government to own or control some means of production. Indeed, the influence of Socialism remains so pervasive despite the collapse of the Soviet Empire that some libertarians have found it convenient to use “socialist” as a synonym for “authoritarian” when describing government repression. Since most such repression is justified in terms of socialist ideals, this is a fairly rational simplification. [5] But governments are more properly viewed not in terms of how socialist they are, but how authoritarian they are. One has only to remember the era of monarchy to realize that authoritarianism can have pretexts other than Socialism. [6]

The libertarian founders of the United States recognized the danger of authoritarianism, and some of its potential sources. They drew a line between government and Religion, so sharply that it was later explicitly recognized as the doctrine of “Separation of Church and State.” It is a great blessing that this doctrine has come to be widely recognized, in the United States at least, as a good and necessary safeguard.

America’s founders drew an equally sharp line between Socialism and State, but what they intended was not widely understood, perhaps because Socialism was not named until 1827, and the checks and balances they put in place to prevent the merger of the two were gradually eroded.

Some of the founders also recognized the evil presented by the merger of Racism and State, but unfortunately failed to act on their knowledge. This failing has seriously undermined their moral authority.

Since then, humanity has made great progress in separating Racism from State. The last explicitly racist government in the world, the apartheid regime in South Africa, folded several years ago under intense internal and external pressures. Racism is now so universally looked upon with repugnance that where it is officially sanctioned, in “affirmative action” programs and the like, it dare not speak its name.

Two of the other forces, Socialism and Religion, are currently the subjects of major controversies. Though few people besides libertarians advocate an end to the socialist welfare state, the degree to which the law will reflect socialist and religious values is hotly contested in many parts of the world. [7]

But one major force remains intertwined with government to such a degree that it is almost unnoticed, and that is Nationalism. Virtually no one, as yet, is calling for the Separation of Nation and State. 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a “nation” as “An extensive aggregate of persons, so closely associated with each other by common descent, language, or history, as to form a distinct race or people, usually organized as a separate political state and occupying a definite territory.”

So what’s wrong with Nationalism? It is an ideology that encourages people to think of themselves as part of a collective, rather than as individuals. Divorced from the concept of the nation-state, nationalism is simply pride in one’s nationality or ethnic heritage. But compared to the charitable impulses of Religion and the cooperative spirit of Socialism, it’s hard to see national pride resulting in much concrete good. And lurking on the flip side of that harmless pride in “one’s own” is Racism, the hatred or downgrading of the “other.”

Given its role as a help maid to state power, Nationalism is more dangerous at present than Racism. A nationalist is a collectivist, and not part of just any collective, but a collective naturally owing allegiance (and subservience, in times of “national emergency”) to a national government. Right now, nationalism generated by the September 11 attacks is fueling the growth of an American police state. [8]

Being tied to particular nationalities has strengthened the hand of governments, allowing them to take advantage of patriotic sentiments and lending more legitimacy to their claims of acting on behalf of the people. According to the American Concise Encyclopedia, “The development of absolutism [defined by the encyclopedia as government under which the ruler has unlimited power] is closely associated with the emergence of modern nation states in the late 1400s.”

What would a modern world in which States were not based on this concept of a nation look like? Without States to serve as vehicles for dangerous Nationalist sentiments, the rivalries and antagonisms that have historically developed between people of varying heritage would become relatively impotent, resulting in less conflict and aggression. Being “French” could still have meaning in terms of describing a person’s native language, ethnic heritage, cultural customs, etc., but there would no longer be any political entity called “France” to command one’s allegiance.

A movement for the Separation of Nation and State might encourage secession on an economic basis, as a means for small regions to get out from under the thumb of wasteful central governments. In the homogenized world of today, new State jurisdictions not based around existing nationalities would be unlikely to develop a sense of nationality as strong as that of countries of long historical standing.

Ultimately, a goal could be to develop the idea of government existing independently of a particular piece of physical territory. Countries then might be more like businesses, having citizens scattered around the world rather than occupying a contiguous area, so that the seat of government mattered no more than the location of a company’s headquarters. You could have a choice of governments, each offering different services, without actually relocating.

The difficulty would be in figuring out a mechanism to maintain protection for life, liberty, and property under the rule of law without descending into the total power vacuum of anarchy. But one way or another, we must separate Nationalism, as well as Racism, Religion, and Socialism from government if we want a peaceful world free from legal aggression.
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1. My capitalization of the words Nationalism, Racism, Religion, and State Socialism within this essay is an effort to make it easier for the reader to think about these terms in the new sense I describe here of four world-shaping forces - the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, if I may be forgiven for borrowing a religious metaphor.

2. Voluntary socialism is widely practiced at the community level, especially within families.

3.  The continuing bloodshed in the Middle East is likewise fueled by three of the forces - Racism, Religion, and Nationalism.

4.  Instead of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Marx, Engels and Lenin were to become the spiritual guides of the people.

5. The actual reason for government repression has little to do with Socialism, of course - the major cause of tyranny is rampant power addiction among government leaders.

6. The Advocates for Self-Government Chart (aka the Nolan Chart after its creator David Nolan), the political model widely used by libertarians, is flawed in at least one respect: It gives the liberal-conservative axis equal weight with the libertarian-authoritarian axis. In fact it is doubtful that anything close to a perfect liberal or perfect conservative government could exist. It is inconceivable that a government could regulate all economic activity without meddling in the personal lives of those under its control, any more than a government obsessed with enforcing its views of personal morality could keep out of the economic sphere. Near-perfect libertarian and authoritarian models of government (or no government) are at least theoretically possible.

7. The current trouble with Al Qaeda and international terrorism is related to the deeper problem that fundamentalist Islam is the state religion in much of the Middle East. 

8. Indeed, were it not for nationalism, it’s unlikely the attack on the World Trade Center would have happened. Where is the incentive to blow up a privately-owned building in New York, except in the knowledge that it would be seen as an “attack on America?”

Originally published in Liberty For All August 31, 2002.