Silly GM commercials

Last night I had the TV on during dinner, and while I was waiting for my food to cook (in the microwave, of course) a new commercial from GM came on.  It extolled the virtue of “Government Motors,” as Lew Rockwell has taken to calling it (He must be an essentialist rather than a nominalist!).  The guy with the deep voice on the voiceover told us all about the new, great stuff that is going to come from this bureaucracy:  greener cars (which I always resist as a matter of principle), better design, etc, etc.  

Of course, Government Motors can get away with this kind of claptrap because most people don’t know the first thing about Socialism.  In his book entitled Socialism, Ludwig von Mises describes the problems of a centralized economy.  One of those problems is how to respond to customer demand.  A large, distant bureaucracy does not have the ability to respond quickly to what the consumer wants.  So be prepared to be told what kind of car you ought to have, rather than to select the kind of car you want.  Moreover, it’s quite possible that Government Motors could run out of inventory, or be left with entirely too much inventory.  I suspect the former, especially if they start putting out products that are reminiscent of those Eastern European cars from the Cold War era.  

Surely this is good news for the owners of Ford.  If they know what they’re doing they ought to be rolling in money by the time this nightmare is over—not that we’ll have time to care, since our tax dollars will be covering the losses incurred by the new “GM.”

Where does an anarchist find order?

We have spent only a little time on this blog discussing the virtues of anarchy and the ways that it would play out in real life. In a previous post, I mentioned that anarchists, far from advocating chaos, promote a system of order that does not make use of the State or of the government.

It would seem prudent, before this conversation goes too far, to distinguish between order and planning. It is truly fitting that “plan” is a four-letter word. Central Planning has become second nature to most people. Barack Obama and John McCain talk about their plans to make America better–as if it is they rather than the hard working citizens who make America what it is. Indeed, to many, “order” cannot exist without a central plan, without someone to boss around and steal from the various entities in a given society.

Order, however, need not–and in many ways cannot–come from above, but rather comes from within. As an analogy, I recall Charles Rosen’s insight that the symmetrical form of Classical era music (Mozart and Haydn in particular) was not imposed from without, like a mold, but rather grew organically from within, as each little detail, each contingency, built upon the work. So it is with, for instance, the free market: the mutual exchange of goods and ideas contributes greatly to a harmonious order in society. What might seem chaotic on the microscopic level turns out to be well-crafted on the macroscopic level. The disorganization is only apparent.

There is more, however. Surely one must grant that a society without a grand discourse will fall into shambles. Grand discourses are not exactly in vogue in these the days of rampant horizontalism. Many, perceiving the ensuing chaos from this, call for more government, or even a theocratic monarchy (Those who don’t know the mistakes of history are destined to repeat them), and few of them ever give serious thought to the idea that maybe the best form of government is none at all. Why, that would be chaos!

I find all this to be strange, not to mention self-contradictory. If government were able to prevent societal collapse, then the cities and towns of the 21st century would be in much better shape than they are. What is missing is the metaphysical. Please don’t misunderstand me: I’m not in any way calling for some kind of Christianist State, such as Mike Huckabee might. I’m only saying that a society that is stuck in the sensible world is doomed. Really, the metaphysical is what is needed to maintain society, not governments. An appreciation for the metaphysical, however, comes from private initiative, not from legislative fiat.

F.A. Hayek in his book The Road to Serfdom remarked that the more intrusive a government becomes, the less virtuous the citizenry becomes. Similarly, Richard Weaver warned in Ideas Have Consequences of the encroachments of the State on men who have failed to exhibit virtue. If these two insights are synthesized, the remedy becomes apparent: men must become more virtuous, so that the futility (not to mention the evil) of the State becomes more obvious.

All of this, of course, is up to us. It has nothing to do with electing the right congressman or president, or with gaining a tenuous 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court. Rather, it has everything to do with how we view life (Do we even start from the ancient philosophical idea that life is to be loved and cherished?), how we live, and how we interact with each other.

Running, the State, and Liu Xiang

A few months ago, at the urging of a friend, I abandoned my bike-riding routine in favor of running. This was a fortuitous decision; I am now in much better shape and stand to make much more improvement still.

Over the course of the past several months I have learned what to do and what not to do when it comes to running. Often I ignored conventional wisdom, thinking that it didn’t apply to me. And I was wrong. Being of the more-or-less hard-headed variety, I thought that I could decide exactly how my exercise regimen would go. Period. So, I’d say to myself, “Tonight I’m going to double my run.” Or I would resolve to run faster, only to have side-stitches halfway through. The same thing has applied to my weight loss goals, all of which I’ve met, but in more roundabout fashion than I would like.

There is a fundamental error here which I am having to fight: the idea that, purely by my decision-making, I can bring all good things to pass. This folly, however, does not take sufficient account of the fact that the human body is an organic mechanism and therefore cannot be forced to do something which it is not able or ready to do. These conditions vary from day to day, and perhaps even from minute to minute. Some nights, my body feels great and I far surpass my expectations when it comes to running. Other nights, I may have started too soon after eating, or my knee hurts, or my allergies kick in (an ugly sight, for those of you who haven’t witnessed it). Results are then disappointing.

I suppose the good thing is that I have been smart enough to realize that the best laid plains, well, you know, and I have made adjustments as circumstances dictate. Throughout the course of this learning process, however, it has been on my mind that there is an analogy to be drawn between running and the State. Consider first that I have been fighting a battle between my mind, i.e. the goals I set and the decisions I make, and my body, which is only capable of so much, and which is forced to react to given circumstances. This is not unlike the dichotomy between the State and the market. The State, when it gets its grimy hands on the economy and starts to engage in Central Planning, decides what goals are achievable, and, moreover, which goals are desirable. It is the “supermind” that makes all the decisions. The market–the interaction between various people and businessmen based on their given needs–is like the body, which also performs according to the given needs and circumstances of the moment, in spite of what our minds might like it to do.

Now I must confess that one part of this analogy may well be quite far-fetched. Whereas the human mind is indeed connected to the human body and therefore likely to adjust its expectations to the feedback the body gives off, the State-sponsored supermind is not attached to the “body” of the citizenry, making it much easier to ignore the real circumstances and the real needs of the people, and making it impossible to keep up with said needs in real time. In this respect, I suppose that Central Planning is even more arrogant than my fantasies of being a marathon runner. Think I’m crazy? Read about Liu Xiang.