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Image citation: Finding by Teslariu Mihai, licensed under Unsplash
We love theories, we humans. And then we put the theories into action, for good or ill. Humans are governed by ideas.
We are the only species that does both war and worship. Our theories drive us—for example, the theory of the just war or of the God who died. Elephants and whales do not gather in armies or churches to fight or pray. Maybe in their wanderings, these big-brained, long-lived creatures come to insights about God or art or economics. But if so, they do not try to persuade each other or tell the others their theories, or even, to murmur the insights quietly, putting them into language, that most characteristic feat of humans.
The theories are -isms, as in theism or stoicism or feminism. Three big political isms came to mind and language 1776 to 1848, and have had enormous influence right down to the present— liberalism, nationalism, and socialism. I’ve said this before. When put into action, especially in the 20th century, liberalism pursued vigorously had wonderful results. The other two pursued vigorously, by using the power of the big modern state, had terrible results. Liberalism resulted in human enrichment, from art and science to health and housing. Nationalism led to the Paraguayan War, and socialism led to Venezuelan impoverishment.
There’s another big 19th-century -ism with 20th-century consequences, protectionism. It uses the power of the state to protect these Brazilian capitalists from foreign competition by blocking entry to Brazil, or it protects these American plumbers from domestic competition by blocking entry to plumbing. Another ism-word for it would be syndicalism, from Greek súndikos, advocate,” itself from “with justice.” Ha, ha. Its claim, absurd on its face but very popular, is that if we make this capitalist and this plumber richer by letting them combine in a syndicate against society, preventing the liberty of contract to buy where you wish, then all of us—the non-capitalists and the non-plumbers—will also be protected and indeed enriched. Ha, ha, ha.
Syndicalism is silly as economics, and leads on to worse than silliness in politics, like nationalism and socialism, especially in extreme forms. In gentle form, they’re not so bad. A little gentle joking among Brazilians and Argentinians about which nation has the best football team is harmless, and even a gentle substitute for war. A little gentle socialism coming to the aid of victims of floods or forest fires should be praised in church. A little gentle making of syndicates among manufacturers to recommend standards for shoes, or among workers to give them a non-coercive voice in the shoe factory is harmless, too. But in their extreme forms, to which all three tend, even in nowadays Brazil and the USA, they turn hideous. Nationalism, socialism, and syndicalism were the promises in its very name of the German party that reigned 1933-1945, die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.
Theories, isms, can drive whole countries mad. Liberalism brings us back to sanity.
The piece was originally published in the Brazilian Newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and permission from the author has been obtained to republish the piece on Bastiat Scrolls.
