 So, one of the big questions about Albert J. Nock for modern day libertarians is his discussion of economism. Economism, he refers to this quite often. And he says he invented the word in a footnote he writes, this is not, this word is not in any dictionary as far as I know. I use it because my only alternative is materialism which is ambiguous and inexact. He writes Western society was entirely given over to economism. It had no other philosophy. Apparently it did not know there was any other. It interpreted the whole of human life in terms of production, acquisition and distribution of wealth. Now, it's very easy to imagine modern day libertarians having a lot to say about that. They'll say this economic activity is what builds civilization. It's what gives us time and leisure so we could read great books like this one that I'm talking about now. Memoirs of a superfluous man. So, one of the questions that I'm offering, I'm suggesting we think about is to what extent is he right and to what extent is he wrong. He writes American society had the morale of an army on the march. I sometimes thought of the rich lumbermen I had known so well. That's when he lived in that great lake town and on the whole rather liked. Now I was looking at the great avatars of their practical philosophy. The corneggies, the Rockefellers, Fricks, Hills, Huntington's of the period. I asked myself whether any amount of wealth would be worth having if, as one most evidently must, if one had to become just like these men in order to get it. To me at least decidedly it would not. I should be a superfluous man in the scuffle for riches. A lot of intellectuals do not like rich people or entrepreneurs because I think they're jealous because they've devoted their whole life to proving themselves in academia and they think they deserve more and they think these less learned men who earn all this money deserve less. They don't realize that it's the market, it's the masses who are making this decision. I wonder if Albert Jane Knot can be accused of jealousy or if there was something more to it. I mean certainly we're used to hearing libertarians depend the robber barons but the accusations against them are pretty ridiculous. We're emerging from a century in which 200 million people were killed by their own governments and we're still being told to be afraid of 19th century robber barons. I constantly waited for Albert Jane Knot to specify exactly what he meant by economism, exactly what his problem was with the corneggies and Rockefellers. Never quite laid it out to my satisfaction but still his musings are interesting and I've identified a whole bunch of them which I'm going to read. Could a society build a complete realization of every ideal of the economism they had represented be permanently satisfactory to the best reason and spirit of man? Could it be called a civilized society? The things seem preposterous, absurd. After a wealth science invention had all for such a society, had done all for such a society that they could, it would remain without savor, without depth, uninteresting and with all horrifying. I found that few more highly developed minds in America were well aware of this. Thoreau was Emerson Lowell, C.F. Adams and his sons, Brooks and Henry Curtis, Mark Twain, Howells. All these made record of their apprehension and repugnance. Again, I don't have time to look up all these writers in search for their apprehension and repugnance at what Albert Jane Knot calls economism. I have a few hints with a few of them. Certainly Thoreau and Emerson are pretty easy to imagine. Although Emerson's, what's it called, Leaves of Grass, that's such a celebration of economics and economic activity. So the mystery will remain, at least for me, unless if somebody can imagine this place fill me in, I'll be very grateful. He writes, Whitman lapsed from his, quote, barbaric yop, end quote, of faith in economism to the desponding observation that the type of civilization which economism had produced was, quote, so far an almost complete failure in its social aspect and in really grand religious, moral, literary and aesthetic results. This is still Walt Whitman talking. It is as if we were somehow being endowed with a vast and thoroughly appointed body and then left with little or no soul, end quote. Again, I'm not sure I agree, but I want to understand this point of view better. Glorified the extreme of economism as a practical philosophy by writing breadwinners, languidly complained of the restless haste and hunger, which is the source of much that is good and most that is evil in American life. According to French literature, I found the Goncourt, Merame, Halley, the Nerval, Chevalier, Flaubert, De Musette, and many others had marked the direction which French society was taking under the spur of and had declared their fixed conviction that, quote, evil is coming, end quote. Their writings also reflected the great general feeling of amnesianess. Merame in his last days testified that, quote, everybody is afraid though nobody knows of what, end quote. It could also be that he's speaking, you know, he witnessed the first world war and he witnessed society enter the second world war. So maybe he sees that as the natural conclusion of society's lack of appreciation for anything besides money. I don't know. Later he writes, economism has built a society which is rich, prosperous, powerful, even one which has reasonably wide diffusion of material well-being. It cannot build one which is lovely, one which has savor and depth and which exercises irresistible power of attraction that loveliness wields. Perhaps by the time economism has run its course, the society it had built may be tired of itself, bored by its own hideousness, and may despairingly consent to annihilation, aware that it is too ugly to be let to live any longer. He's certainly a pretty writer. Okay, some hints of what his ideal is. Instead of economism, how does he want society to look? And he offers a hint in this passage. In Europe, I watched the slow, relentless suffocation of life's amenities as the various peoples were forced closer and closer into the pattern set by economism. Brussels was Brussels when I first saw it. Amenity still existed in its society. The whole organization of life was amiable. Its pleasures and diversions were amiable, unmechanized, satisfying. They gave the sense of being taken as a wholesome and regular part of life. One was as much at home in the museums, the concert halls, the theater, the opera, as in one's own house. Going to the opera was not a laborious and costly job, and it gave one no sense of being let in on a purely professional occasion. It would get a light, unhurried dinner at the true Susie's or the Four Quapas. And then, when the bell rang, I would leave my hat and overcoat in the restaurants, walk 20 steps to Monet's side entrance, and join in the performance of highly professional excellence pervaded by the spirit of highly gifted and highly cultivated. The spirit of the highly gifted and highly cultivated. Yes, one felt that one belonged there. One was a participant, not an auditor, an outsider. Then when the performance was over, I would retrieve my hat and coat, stroll over to some nearby resort for a taste of steamed mussels and beer, while I listened to some energetic discussion, perhaps of the opera, perhaps of any other object under the sun. And then, if the night were pleasant, I would walk home. About the period since 1914, since the beginning of the war, or no, that's since America's entry into the Great War, the war to end all wars, he writes, virtually all aspects, excuse me, virtually all except the economism's word for it, that were you to have prosperity, railways, banks, newspapers, industry, trade, there of necessity you have civilization. One who hinted that a society might have all these yet remain uncivilized, or that a society might have almost nothing of any of them and still be quite highly civilized, anyone hinting at this would be laughed at. Since 1914, the only virtues that I have seen glorified with any kind of sincerity or spontaneous acclaim are barbaric virtues, the virtues of the jazz artists, ooh, jazz, and the cinema hero tempered on occasion by the virtues of Genghis Khan, Attila, Grenus, Grenus, I looked that up. That was one of the many references that I looked up and those were, that was the name of, those were the names of Grenus, there were two separate Gaulish chieftains with that name in the third and fourth century BC. I guess they were, he lists them with Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun, so I guess they were known for being brutal. In a society given over to the philosophy of economism, this is inevitable and therefore I must not take as disparagingly the more modern type of editor, the old style editor is merely one of the casualties of economism. Gresham's law has driven out this conception of editorial function and has replaced it with that of the go-getter. Just as in Brussels I saw it drive out the old style restaurant's conception of his function and replace it by that of the mass producer. So he's decrying, one of the things he decries is how restaurants and, and writing the quality goes down as it reaches the masses. And I could very easily imagine Jeffrey Tucker explaining to Albert J. Nock that this is driven by the choice of the masses. I'm not sure, I'm not sure that would console Albert J. Nock as, as I talked about in the last video. He has a horribly low opinion of the masses. He thinks they're not even human. But I could also imagine Jeffrey Tucker explaining that, that the more affluent a society becomes, the more room there is for very particular tastes. So the types of restaurants and operas in literature that Albert J. Nock appreciates, they develop their own niches. So I think this is a misuse of Gresham's law. He complains about restaurants vanishing in Brussels and kind of seems with the, with the attitude and voice of a cranky old man. Now let's talk about politics, about democracy, he says. Democracy did not impress me for I knew as well as Chief Justice Jay that quote, Every political theory which does not regard mankind as being what they are will prove abortive. As I understand the term it is of the very essence of democracy that the individual citizen shall be invested with the inalienable and sovereign right to make an ass of himself. And furthermore he shall be invested with the sovereign right of publicly to tell all the world that he is doing so. About the media he says this could have been written last week. Thus to keep alive the feud of ignorant partisanship like the feud of the greens and blues in Rome and Byzantium so long ago. Or the feud of wigs and tories, democrats or republicans, black shirts and red shirts in more recent years. He comments on the republic. The outbreak of the Spanish war had caused me to doubt that the centuries net gains from republicanism were substantial. Or that its achievement of personal liberty was at all valid. If two men, one an abject political hack and the other a job holder of dubious quality. If these with the power of patronage in their hands could maneuver a nation of 80 million into an imperialist war. I should take it as pretty good evidence that the absolutism can flourish about as luxuriously under republicanism as under an autocracy. Thus while considering the phenomenon of economism and modern imperialism. I was also led to observe the concurrent growth of what long afterwards I learned to call statism. Does Albert J. Nock go all the way? Does is he an anarchist and I mean the peaceful sort, the anarcho-capitalist or volunteerist? About the state in general he writes, the state is everything. He's using the philosophy of the time. The state is everything, the individual nothing. The individual has no rights that the state is bound to respect, no rights at all. In fact, except those which the state may choose to give him subject to revocation at its own pleasure with or without notice. There is no such thing as natural rights. The fundamental doctrine of the American Declaration of Independence, the doctrine underlying the Bill of Rights is all moonshine. This is not so unusual to hear today, but amazing that it was being said and observed by Albert J. Nock in the 1930s and early 40s. Moreover, since the state creates all rights, since the only valid and authoritative ethics are state ethics, then by obvious inference the state can do no wrong. Such was the view with which the peoples of the western world had become indoctrinated. Given a people imbued with this idea, the republicanism of the 19th century seemed to me only what the Scots called, Code Cale made Hutt again. Absolutism warmed up and rebaptized. In France, the strong common sense of many like Horace Vernet Halley had openly scorned it. And the far-seeing Guizot contemptuously called it the kind of republicanism which begins with Plato and necessarily ends with a policeman. In England, Herbert Spencer had written the immortal essay subsequently put together in a volume called The Man vs. the State, in which he demolished the doctrine of the omnipotent state. Movements for direct federal taxation, popular election of senators, women's suffrage, control of commerce and control of trust monopoly, would first attract in my attention, oh that's not a complete sentence. I excerpted and I guess in some places I excerpted poorly. Okay so he mentions direct taxation, senators by direct election, women's suffrage, control of commerce, control of monopoly. Well first attracted my attention was the astonishing extent to which these latter were animated by a hatred of the rich. Again this could have been written last week. There was some ground for this, these great fortunes were made by means which were outrageously unfair, which were felt to be so. Their owners were in control of the state's machinery and were using their own advantage by way of land grants, tariffs, concessions, franchise and every other known form of law made privilege. In the view of simple justice this was shockingly bad. Yet I could not help seeing that it was in full accord of the dominant social philosophy, economism, which interprets the whole sum of human life in terms of production, acquisition, distribution of wealth, must necessarily fashion its gods after its own likeness. You see right there I would have been much more comfortable if he said that economism, you know like corporatism if he said economism was the union of commerce and government, if economism was using the state's machinery to your advantage instead of competing like a gentleman, but he doesn't, he says production, acquisition, and distribution of wealth. Economism must not conceive of the state as an instrument of justice, a social device set up as the declaration says to secure these rights. On the contrary it must be what Voltaire called it, a device quote, a device for taking money out of one's set of pockets and putting it into another end quote. With this conception of the state and its function accepted everywhere, prevailing everywhere, what could be expected but a continuous struggle to get at the state's machinery and work it to one's own advantage. Fantastic. They talked about oppressiveness of capital, the evils of the capitalist system, the iniquities of finance, capital, and so on, apparently with no idea of what those terms mean. To me, therefore, most of what they said was sheer nonsense. As I saw it, there was nothing in the nature of capital that was unjust or oppressive. Again, fantastic that he's not. Like he has common grounds for criticism with all the big socialists of his time, but right there he doesn't take the bait, he's too smart. Nothing in the nature of capital that was unjust or oppressive, but quite the contrary. I could see that injustice and oppression were likely to follow when great capitalists were in a position of state-created economic advantage, like Mr. Carnegie with his tariffs or the railway magnets with their land grants. The reformers themselves apparently did not see that the state as an arbiter of economic advantage must necessarily be the potential instruments of economic exploitation. He uses the term mass men a lot, which I believe is a term that comes from Nietzsche, which defines them as an unintelligent, ignorant, myopic, incapable of psychical development. And he says it's a struggle just between rich mass men and poor mass men. The rich mass men are also unintelligent, ignorant, myopic, and incapable of psychical development, but are prodigiously sagacious and prehensile. If I had been asked for a definition at the time measuring by the standards of civilized man, the standards set by Plato, Dante, Marcus Aurelius, I should have put it that the mass men is a digestive and reproductive mechanism gifted with a certain low sagacity employable upon anything which bears upon the conduct of those two functions. If he is over gifted with his sagacity and has a measure of luck, he becomes a rich mass man. If not, he becomes a poor mass man, but in either case he remains a mass man. He talks about the reforms, the reforms ultimately contemplated anything more, ultimately complicated, contemplated anything more than prying the state's machinery out of the rich mass man's control and turning it over to the poor mass man. On the afternoon, one afternoon in 1900, I listened while a young Jewish socialist was breathing out threatenings and slaughterings against the rich. I asked him just what it was that he proposed to do when he got them all properly killed off. We have been oppressed, he said, and now we shall oppress. I thought he put the matter very well, for I could see no other prospect. What I was looking at was simply a tussle between two groups of mass men, one large and poor, the other small and rich. As judged by the standards of a civilized society, neither of them any more meritorious or promising than the other, their acceptance of the state as a social institution amazed me since its antisocial character was so plainly visible. He says the state can offer its people four freedoms. I think those are the four sensationalized by that artist slash illustrator. What was his name? Rock, Rockwell Rock. I forgot it'll come to me later. He says that the state can offer its people four freedoms or six or any number, but it will never let them have economic freedom. If it did, it would be signing its own death warrant for as Lenin pointed out, quote, it is nonsense to make any pretense of reconciling the state and liberty and quote, our economic system being what it is and the state being what it is. All the mass of verbiage about the free peoples and the free democracies is merely so much obscene buffoonery comments on economics. The general preoccupation with money led to several curious beliefs which are now so firmly rooted that one hardly sees how anything short of a collapse of our whole economic system can displace it. One such belief is that commodities goods and services can be paid for with money. This is not so money does not pay for anything never has never will. It is an economic axiom that as old as the hills that goods and services are paid for with goods or services. But 20 years ago this axiom vanished from everyone's reckoning and has never reappeared. No one seems in the least aware that everything which is paid for must be paid for out of production for there is no other source of payment. Now I think he is a man of huge integrity and if he knew Sey's laws he would have stated this as Sey's laws. The fact that not the fact but if he did not as I believe he did not know Sey's economic law the fact that he makes this observation is huge. It speaks volumes to his brilliance because what he described is Sey's laws that goods and services are paid for with goods and services. Money is just a medium of exchange it's all the Kinsians that want us to pay attention to the money and not to the goods and services. And that leads to a whole host of not just wrong but dangerous ideas. Another strange notion pervading whole peoples is that the state has money of its own. Nowhere is this absurdity more firmly fixed than in America. The state has no money it produces nothing. Okay this we know. One is especially amused at seeing how largely a naive ignorance of this fact underlines the pernicious measures of social security which have been hoisted on the American people. He and okay so that was a long discussion of economism and his political views. And then now and then in the book it just returns to a few lines of narrative and kind of puts him in the world making these observations because it departs it leaves the body and you just get this criticism of society. He writes that at age 35 or so I dismissed all interest in public affairs. I pondered the example of the great social philosophers of the past who had never crusaded for their doctrines or presumed upon mankind's capacity for receiving them. Not Socrates, not Jesus, not Lao Tze whom Yi Chen had said that quote he was a superior man who liked to keep in obscurity and quote what wisdom quote. If I have if any man have ears to hear said the Santissimo Salvatore let him hear and quote that was all there was to be expected. I admire the reformers George in particular. I think he's talking about Henry George who founded the philosophy of Georgism, which is which is libertarian and everything but land ownership where and in that they are socialist. I admire the reformers George in particular for the splendid intrepidity which one admires the leader of a forlorn hope. Yet I could not resist reminding myself of Montague's great saying that quote human society goes very incompetently about healing its ills. It is so impatient under the immediate irritation which is chafing it that it thinks only of getting rid of this careless of the cost. Good does not necessarily ensue upon evil another evil may ensue upon it and they worse one. That is a dynamite quote. I need to save that for later. Oh I'm sorry it wasn't Montague it was Montaghan. I'm not sure how to pronounce the French. I'll read it again because I love it so much. Human society goes very incompletely about incompetently. Human society goes very incompetently about healing its ills. It is so impatient under the immediate irritation which is chafing it that it thinks only of getting rid of this careless of the cost. Good does not necessarily ensue upon evil another evil may ensue upon it and they worse one. He returns to the futility of government makes some keen observations. All state systems seem to tend about equally toward the same end of state slavery in rich countries as Mr. Jefferson had noticed. They reached that end a little faster than in poor countries. In a single century after 1789 France had tried every known kind of state system some two or three times over. Three republics, a couple monarchies, two empires, now and then a dictatorship, a directory, a commune. Every system one could think of each ship brought about the same consequences to the individual. And they all alike for testimony to the truth of pain saying that quote the trade of governing has always been a monopoly of the most ignorance and the most vicious of mankind. Another great quote. I began to think there was a good deal and William Penn's observation that quote when all is said there is hardly any frame of government so ill designed by its founders that in good hands it would not do well enough. And story tells us best in ill ones can do nothing that is great or good and quote the triumph of republicanism was supposed to be a tremendous achievement was supposed to be a tremendous achievement. Yet the republican state or democratic as Americans between calling it had the same consequences. I kind of disagree. I mean, not to that level of skepticism. Like any kind of state system tends towards slavery is true, but republicanism is certainly an improvement and certainly the more political anarchy you have, the less it will tend towards late state slavery. But perhaps anarchy is not a state system perhaps the absence of a state system. So maybe maybe the quote by William Penn sound something like republicanism or democracy will work after a fashion in a village or even a township where everybody knows everybody and keeps an eye on what goes on. Why not then in a country a state a nation simply because the law of diminishing returns is against it. I think there's something to this. I think that the same idea appears now as public choice theory. And I argue this in my in a something SA of US too big to succeed. Small democracies have a lot more going for them than big democracies. There's a variety of reasons for that one because you can't spread out the costs so much. You know, the problem in any democracy is there's a concentrated there's a concentrated benefit for people who can harness the violence of the state whereas the cost of that is spread out. So you always have people who are motivated to work very hard to control the state and pass policies in their favor while the people are only a little bit motivated to take the time to fight those policies. He one funny thing he talked about Andrew Carnegie and again I'm very interested in the criticism because I usually I myself defend the robber barons and I hear libertarians defending them. And he just makes fun of this isn't an elaboration of why he doesn't like Andrew Carnegie but he just makes fun of him as a writer. He he calls Andrew Carnegie's book triumphant democracy is it carry in flight of genius it carry in flight of genius. He writes also Socrates could not but Socrates could not have got votes enough out of the Athenian mass men to be worth counting. But you view less easily could and did one go enough to keep himself in office as long as the corrupt fabric of the Athenian state held together against a Jesus the historic choice of mass men goes regularly to some Barabbas. If I understand correctly Barabbas Barabbas was the prisoner who was who was freed of the by different accounts it was either the Jewish ruler or the Roman ruler asked the masses to vote on who to free Jesus or someone else and they voted for someone named Barabbas. So as all of us libertarians would be without the internet. Albert Jane Knox goes deeply into intellectual isolation it's very apparent throughout the book. He talks about the author of imitation which I think is one of it's considered one of the best like sort of interpretations or or guides to the Bible I think it was written way back in the 15th century. The fewer there be he quotes imitation the fewer there be who follow the way to heaven the harder that way is to find and quote I knew I had nothing to contribute to our society that it would care to accept. I was like a man who landed in Greenland with a cargo of straw hats. There was nothing wrong with Greenland or with the hats and the man might be on best terms with the Greenlanders in a social way but there was not the faintest chance of marketing this line of goods. I count myself lucky beyond expression to have lived through the last 60 years rather than the next. It's a very sad thing to say. He thinks he believes he's witnessing the end of the civilized world. Well by many counts he did with World War One. The idea that there is something to live for besides the production acquisition and distribution of wealth. This idea died a slow hard death in France. One whom things had cast for the part of a native of Paris in the period 1810 to 1885 would have had all the best of it. For never in the world I believe have so many great practitioners of the good life the truly humane life and gathered together in one place as in Paris as in the Paris of that period 1810 to 1885. In no other society could a humble amateur of the humane life get so effortlessly a clear and complete conception of what that life is, of what philosophy is, and what its rewards are. In no other civilization if I may say so would he find himself less an alien, less a superfluous man. Alright I'm going to round out this discussion of politics and then call it a video and I guess I'll finish in a part three. What is patriotism? It is loyalty to a spot on the map marked off from another spot by blue or yellow lines, the spot where one was born. But birth is a pure accident. Surely one is no way responsible for having been born to this spot or that. Flo Baer had poured a stream of corrosive irony on the idea of patriotism. It is loyalty to a set of political job holders, a king in his court, a president in his bureaucracy, a parliament, a congress, a furor, a comorra of commissars. I found no reason in the nature of things why a person should be loyal to one system rather than another. One could see at a glance that there is no saving grace in any system. I think sort of multiculturalism versus nationalism. I don't think Albert J. Nock was sensitive to those issues. He grew up in a fairly homogenous society. But what he writes here is certainly pro-multiculturalism or at least anti-nationalism. It seems like he advocates open borders. So when people speak of loyalty to one's country, one must ask what do they mean by that? What is one's country? Mr. Jefferson said contemptuously that merchants have no country that the mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. But one may ask why should it? This motive of patriotism seems to me perfectly sound. And if it be sound for merchants, why not for others who are not merchants? If it holds good in respect of material gains, why not spiritual gains, cultural gains, intellectual and aesthetic gains? As a general principle, I should put it that a man's country is where the things he loves are most respected. That's a man's country. Circumstances may have prevented his ever-setting foot there, but it remains his country. If Mr. Ford and Mr. Rockefeller had been born in Burma and lived all their lives, America would still be their country, their spiritual home with the first call on their every patriotic sentiment. I guess there's a lot that can be said about that, but in the interest of moving on, on revolution. Now, this is an interesting idea. If a revolution liberates an idea, that idea will emerge and take hold of the public mind for good or ill, thus making the revolution successful. Whether or not its immediate object be attained. If it does not liberate an idea, it amounts only to a riot and fizzles out with the gain or loss of its immediate object. It leaves no mark. The French Revolution liberated the idea of the individual's right of self-expression in politics. The Russian Revolution liberated the idea that politics are governed by economics. The idea which John Adams held so staunchly and which marked him as being a century and a half ahead of his time. John Adams also believed that politics are governed by economics. That's news to me. One surprising thing is that he criticized his small states. One of the first lectures that I saw, not the first, but one of the first by Hans von Hoppe was a short, simple lecture called the advantages of small states. There are myriad ways in which small states are more peaceful, in which it's much harder for governments to be corrupt in small states. It's much harder for democracy to get out of control. I don't think Albert Gnach ever thought about that. He just generally criticized all the small states that emerged after World War I. I think their leaders gave him ample reason for criticism. He said, World War I swept in an enormous herd of political adventurers. The innumerable Pilsutskis, Horthkis, Kerenskis, Mazarkis, Beneches, big and little, and kept them working tooth and nail to provide pastureage for themselves in a mismatch of little two-penny succession states. In each of these, strictly according to the pattern, they made it their first business to surround themselves with a high tariff wall in order of a first-class army. He is against small states. I think I'll conclude it at that. Holy moly, another 45-minute video. Okay, well, I'm going to wrap this up in number three. I'll make it pretty soon. That's all for now.