Our Enemy, the State?

“Civil society” has become the talisman of the post–Cold War era, invoked by everybody from Vaclav Havel to Patrick Buchanan. While associations and volun- teer groups are indeed essential to a society’s health, our author reminds us that a civilized society cannot exist without the civilizing authority of the state.

by John Lukacs

ur Enemy, the State is the title of a during his lifetime (he died in 1945), but Obook by the American essayist among the recent generation of conserva- Albert Jay Nock, first published in 1935 tive (conservative, rather than neoconserv- and reprinted three times since, most ative) intellectuals his reputation has risen; recently in 1983. Nock was a very intelli- several of his books, in addition to Our gent thinker, an individualist of much Enemy, the State, have been reprinted, learning, strong prejudices, and profound and there even exists a Nockian Society. convictions. He was also a good writer, Nock was an idiosyncratic and extreme- whose aphoristic style—of which the fol- ly individualistic thinker, but his enmity lowing instances are typical—amounted to for the bureaucratic (and imperialist) state more than superficial brilliance: was not singular. Unique as in many ways “Bureaucracy is ineradicable as a can- he was, he may after all be listed among cer, when once it gets well-rooted.” such antistatist writers as Herbert Spencer, “Probably not many realize how the Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton (all rapid centralization of government in English writers before World War I); America has fostered a kind of organized Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek pauperism.” (Viennese liberals after World War I); and “The present state of public affairs the Viennese neoliberal Karl Popper (after shows clearly enough that the State is the World War II)—except for Spencer, all of poorest instrument imaginable for improv- them heroes of present conservative intel- ing human society, and that confidence in lectuals. While Spencer was an atheist, political institutions and political nos- Belloc and Chesterton were Catholic anti- trums is ludicrously misplaced.” capitalists, which the Viennese were not, “The State is no proper agency for while Nock was an intellectual aristocrat human welfare.” of sorts. There were, thus, deep differences Most of these notions were set down in among their arguments, as there are con- the 1930s. Nock had nothing but con- tradictions within the antistate and anti- tempt for the New Deal. Except for a few government ideologies of the present con- judicious readers, he was not appreciated servatives.

108 WQ Spring 1996 II anxious about the future of governments entirely dependent on popular sovereignty, But, then, Alexis de Tocqueville (in the wrote about government and not the state. second, and originally less appreciated, vol- Indeed, in the 1830s he thought that the ume of Democracy in America) had already authority of the state in the United States foreseen the probable evolution of democ- was too indistinct and weak, rather than def- ratic government into a bureaucratic one. inite and strong. He did not use the words “bureaucracy” or By contrast, Albert Jay Nock’s enemy “welfare,” but he was, as almost always, crys- was not government but the state—a dis- tal clear. The principle of equality, he tinction that he would make at times. He feared, would become more powerful than wished that society would “deprive the the principle of liberty, and the ideal of State of power to make positive coercions equality might sooner or later make people upon the individual at any point in his accept the practice of government extend- economic and social life; for then the State ing itself to rule very large areas of their lives. will go out of existence, and what remains is government.” He was in favor of this, as his was, of course, what happened. behooves an old-fashioned individualist. TFifty or 60 years after Tocqueville, lib- Yet this is not one of Nock’s clearer obiter erals and progressives, especially in the dicta. Nor did it occur to him that while English-speaking countries, were com- the Declaration of Independence was a pelled to advocate government intervention reaction against the exactions of the to correct the vast (and sometimes brutal) English government, the great achieve- injustices flowing from untrammeled capi- ment of the Constitution and of George talism and industrialism. This tendency led Washington was the establishment of the to government institutions, laws, and assorted affirmations of all kinds of material (and other) equalities, and to the eventual appearance of the “welfare” or “provider” state. This kind of government intervention was, for a long time, supported not only by its beneficiaries but by large majorities—until relatively recently, when the rise of “conservatism” led to a rather predictable popular reaction against some of the excesses (and sometimes against the very principles) of government policies and regulations. This popular reaction has not been confined to the United States or to other English-speaking countries. Its symptoms have appeared in Scandinavia, Holland, Ger- many, Austria, Spain—in some places under a neoconservative label, in others under a neoliberal one. The fuzziness of such labels is not the only problem in our political lexicon. There is, for instance, a difference between government and state. Tocqueville, who was

The State 109 that the White House or the Pentagon or the CIA or “Star Wars” are government too; or that not only liberals but also conservatives are inclined, on numerous occasions, to legislate morality or to support gigantic boondoggles such as the Supercollider. Nor does the conservative exaltation of the so-called market economy mean its independence from government. Few conservative Republicans objected to the government bailout of aircraft manu- facturers such as Lockheed. As Nock noted more than 60 years ago, “The simple truth is that our businessmen do not want a government that will let business alone. They want a government that they can use.” That may be as true of postcommunist Russia as it is of the United States, whether Horatio Greenough’s George Washington before or after the New Deal—or now.

American state. It was in the defense of the III state that Washington chose to suppress the antigovernment populists of the The most corrupting lies, wrote Georges Whiskey Rebellion. (Would Nock have Bernanos more than 50 years ago, are been in favor of the Whiskey Rebellion? problems wrongly stated. One—though We do not know.) But now, 60 years after only one—factor in such misstatements is Nock, and 200 years after the Whiskey that our political designations “liberal” Rebellion and Washington, we have con- and “conservative” are so outdated as to servatives who show sympathy for militias, have become almost entirely useless. armed cultists, and all kinds of rebels During the 19th century, liberals fought against the government—people who, in against all kinds of state regulations, rang- reality, are defying not merely the interfer- ing from censorship to restraints on trade. ences of government but the civil authori- They wished to restrict and diminish the ty of the state. stringent authority of the state. Conser- Whether a distinction between govern- vatives believed that the power and the ment and state is unduly philosophic is authority of the state (including even its arguable. What is not arguable is that to authority over religion) must not be weak- the present American critics of govern- ened to a dangerous extent. About 100 ment, this distinction does not exist. The years ago there came a change. Liberals— objects of their indignation, whether of the mostly because of their unquestioning government or of the state, are selectively belief in progress and in evolution—began chosen. The same people who say that the to promote state intervention in economic enemy is government are in favor of every life, to protect and insure more people— kind of armament or defense expenditure except when it came to the preservation of as well as of other imperial institutions of traditional morals. Conservatives (and the state. During the antigovernment please note that “conservative,” as a politi- Reagan era, the White House staff was six cal adjective, was unacceptable in the times larger than Franklin Roosevelt’s at United States until about 40 years ago), the peak of World War II. Consider then unlike their putative ancestors, began to

> John Lukacs, a historian and essayist, is currently visiting professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. His many books include A History of the Cold War (1961), Historical Consciousness (1968), The Duel (1991), and The End of the Twentieth Century and the Passing of the Modern Age (1993). Copyright © 1996 by John Lukacs.

110 WQ Spring 1996 argue and campaign for the restriction of socialist, and the latter more socialist government—except when it came to the than nationalist. The combination of military and police powers of the state. Do nationalism and socialism has become not think that these are recent develop- universal. The ratio of its components ments, results of the Reagan or Gingrich may vary from country to country, but it “revolutions.” In 1956, Section Nine of exists everywhere; and of the two compo- the Republican election platform called nents, it is nationalism that often has the for “the establishment of American air and more powerful appeal to the masses. naval bases all around the world.” (The italics are mine.) These were people nother gradual but profound whom liberals at that time still called iso- Achange began a little more than 100 lationists—only God knew why. Or con- years ago, with the emergence of sider a statement by the eloquent Populism. Of course, the Constitution of Christian conservative and Republican the United States established checks and spokeswoman Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly in balances against the unlimited sovereignty 1980: “God gave America the atom of popular majorities. (It is less known that bomb.” Mrs. Schlafly! It was not God; it many of the French radical republicans of was Franklin Roosevelt. the 1790s also expressed their doubts During the 19th century, liberalism was about popular sovereignty.) But the young, representing reform, while conser- Populist movement in the United States, vatism was old, representing tradition; but rising in the 1890s against capitalism and we live now at the end of a century when for radical government intervention in most liberals have become senile, while finance, economics, and education, most conservatives are puerile. demanded popular sovereignty without limits—in sum, more democracy, not less. For a while, Populists and Progressives IV were allied. Then, in the 1930s, came their hostile separation: the former were, The labels “liberal” and “conserva- by and large, nationalists, while the latter tive” did not become outdated only were not. By the 1950s, the formerly because their meanings changed. Nor antipopulist (or at least nonpopulist) did the liberal-conservative antithesis of Republicans became more and more pop- the 19th century become superseded by ulist—with the result that now Republ- a kind of Hegelian synthesis. More than icans and “conservatives” argue that it is 100 years ago, two great new movements they who stand for “genuine popular sover- arose in the world: nationalism and eignty”*—conveniently ignoring the socialism. Their combination—and not checks and balances of the American that of liberalism and conservatism—has constitution. (But then, our present “con- marked most of the history of the 20th servatives” oppose the conservation of century, continuing into the present. land, too.) The most radical and extreme formula- Yet most of their rhetoric and many of tor of this combination was Adolf Hitler; their political advocacies are popular. but the anathema of German National The majority of the American people are Socialism ought not obscure the recog- tired of the excesses of the welfare state. nition that we are, all, national socialists Whether they want less government or now, in one way or another. In 1996, not is yet to be seen. Whether they want there is not one government in the world the weakening of the state is at least that has not accepted some of the practices of the national welfare state. In the *As, for example, William F. Buckley, Jr., in a United States, the difference between manifesto of an article (National Review, Dec. 11, 1995) entitled “After History’s Detour.” (Subtitle: Republicans and Democrats—and “In 1914, History took a wrong turn toward totali- between conservatives and liberals—may tarianism, statism, and moral liberalism.”) Of be properly summed up by saying that course “history” does not take wrong turns. People the former are more nationalist than do. Because of their minds.

The State 111 doubtful, but this is what they seem to lapse of the authority and of the actual think they want. control of the state. Five or six years after these great changes in the former Soviet Union and V in Eastern Europe, there can be no doubt that the greatest danger not only We ought to understand that populism for these regions’ populations but also for is inevitably nationalist. That was recog- the world resides in the weakness of the nized by Hitler, who was most explicit authority of the Russian state: the oppo- about it. He said, on many occasions, site of the Evil Empire syndrome that all that the state was but a framework, and the conservative or neoconservative ideo- an altogether antiquated one. “First logues talked about. The enfeebled came the Volk!” he said, “and only then authority of the central government of the state.” He distrusted both the military the Russian state threatens the living con- and the administrative bureaucracy of ditions of an entire population, while it Germany: “The state is the instrument of affects Russia’s neighbors as well as far- the people.” away powers such as the United States. We ought as well to rethink the impre- We are now witnessing the inability of cise and incorrect term “totalitarianism,” the Russian state to maintain the security meaning the total tyranny of the state. To of its borders, leading to intermittent war- begin with the obvious: total rule of a fare along the edges; the inability of the state is impossible. Even at the peak and government to enforce its laws and regu- at the maximum extent of a modern dic- lations; the inability of its police authori- tator’s rule, there remain people and ty to maintain the necessary minimum of islands of life that are surprisingly law and order—in sum, the inability to untouched by the police rule of the state. protect its people, which is, and must The “totalitarian” adjective may be remain, the essential purpose of a state. acceptable in one sense only—when it From this failure (or is it unwillingness?) refers to the intention of a tyrant to exer- arises that opportunity for criminal or at cise total state control over the inhabi- least semicriminal elements not only to tants, even when such total control is in prosper materially but to enforce their practice unmanageable. Sooner or later own rule by their own means—in other the successors to the tyrant recognize this words, to establish their own authority. It (as at times tyrants themselves do). The was thus that a new kind of barbaric result is an often arbitrary, illogical, and rulership emerged after the total collapse unpredictable reduction of police inter- of Roman imperial authority. Even dur- ference in certain areas of life. This was ing most of the Middle Ages, men were what happened—erratically, and not regularly enlisted to fight on behalf of necessarily as the product of benevolence their local overlords, though not for a or good will—in the Soviet Union after cause so vague as their state. Something the death of Joseph Stalin. After 1953, like this may soon happen again. While the Soviet Union became less of a “total- history does not repeat itself, a new kind itarian” than an “authoritarian” state— of feudalism may be the prospect not even though such designations are never only before Russia but also before much leakproof, and to some extent may over- that remains of the so-called civilized lap. Then, after 1985, the rule of the world. Communist Party and of the government (of which the former constituted a large part of its apparatus) was intentionally VI reduced by Mikhail Gorbachev, until (and it is to be doubted that he had fore- An instructive example of what hap- seen this with all of its consequence) the pens when the authority of the state is weakening authority of the Soviet gov- weak may now be apparent in Italy, a ernment debouched into the partial col- country whose society and history are

112 WQ Spring 1996 A detail from Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory of Good Government (1338–39) profoundly different from those of here the example of Italy may be instructive, Russia. Recently, the majority of Italian for it was in Italy that not only our “modern” voters turned against the ruling political civilization but the very idea and experience parties not only because of revelations of of the modern state began, five or six hun- their large-scale corruption but also dred years ago. because the Christian Democratic governments proved unable to control the he concept, and the practice, of the Mafia and, in some instances, to be in Tmodern state as we know it arose collusion with it. In other words, the cor- among the Italian city-states of the ruption of the government was comple- Renaissance (together with many other mented, indeed enhanced, by the feeble- things, such as modern political theory ness of the authority of the Italian state. and the practice of modern diplomacy). The difference between Italy and Russia Despite ancient precedents, this concept derives, of course, from the historical differ- was new and extraordinary then; the great ences in the characteristics of the two very historian Jakob Burckhardt, author of The different societies. “Civil society” in Italy has Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, always existed because of the strong private entitled one of his famous chapters, “The bonds of the Italian family, with its humane State as a Work of Art.” The formulation of (and often opportunistic) features. But while the ideal of the state and its implementa- civil (or, more precisely, private) society in tion at the city level did not lead to the uni- Italy has existed for a long time, the united fication of Italian-speaking people into a Italian state did not exist until 1870.* And single state; that idea and that achievement lay far in the future. Nor were the *Consider now not only the difference between Medicis, Sforzas, and Estes liberal democ- Italy and Russia but, alas, between Italy and the rats. But the Italian-spawned concept of United States. In June 1992, a vast crowd of the sovereign state soon spread to Western Sicilians demonstrated in Palermo for the enforcement of the laws, against the Mafia, and Europe, as did other achievements of the against the weakness of the Italian government in Renaissance. The first Bourbons of France fighting it. In New York at the same time, a small- and the first Tudor king of England were er but more violent crowd of Italian-Americans no liberal democrats either, but the con- demonstrated in favor of the convicted Mafioso cept and the practice of the modern state and assassin John Gotti, against the enforcement were indissolubly bound to the rise of the of the law, and against the authority of the state sovereign (and, thus, in many ways abso- that prosecuted and convicted him. (Another difference: the Italian-American demonstrators in lute) monarch. New York, all Republicans now, waved American That rise of powerful monarchies includ- flags, convinced as they were that they represent- ed—strange as it may seem—a demo- ed true American nationalism.) cratic element. It was, to a large extent,

The State 113 the inauguration of an elected president. He was supposed to represent the monarchical element in a constitution that had been composed to represent the checks and balances of a “Mixed Government,” including (in the classical Greek meaning of the terms) monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements, all for serv- ing the best possible purposes of the American state. Presidential government, especially in the United States, amounts to a constitutional elective monarchy. In other states, especially in Western Europe, constitutional hereditary monarchies have con- tinued to exist, together with elected governments with liberal and democratic practices not altogether different from those of the United States. That the actual powers of these hereditary monarchies have greatly diminished is obvious. “I am the state,” declared Louis XIV. Somewhat less diminished—though this varies from country to country—is the propelled by a popular reaction against the popular respect accorded to traditional aristocratic feudalism of the Middle Ages, heads of families representing the first with its capricious wars and exactions by servants of the state. So is the respect due feudal lords. The new monarchs were sup- to the father or mother of a family insep- ported by the rising middle classes, whom arable from his or her function as its first they had seemed to protect. It is not whol- servitor. A family will not prosper under ly ascertainable whether Louis XIV really the absolute tyranny of a parent; but said, “L’état c’est moi.” What is ascertain- then, a family cannot really be said to able is that he was less the incarnation exist if governed by the sovereign princi- than the principal representative of the ple of populism. The restoration of the state, the king being the first servant of the liberal and democratic states of Western state rather than the state being the servant Europe after World War II included the of the king. And then, a century or two restoration of their constitutional monar- later, came another change. The central- chies, in Holland, Belgium, Denmark, ization of state power in the court of a king and Norway, for example; the American was becoming less and less efficient and acceptance of the continuance of the less and less tolerable for the same middle monarchy in Japan made the swift end- and upper-middle classes whose ancestors ing of the war possible; Franco’s accep- had once welcomed the protection issuing tance of the grandson of the last king of from the untrammeled powers of a king. Spain as his successor has provided an Some kings were condemned to death; element of stability, too. Thus it is other were rejected; still others were con- regrettable that the restoration of a con- strained to rule according to constitutions. stitutional monarch as head of state was eschewed by the governments in he supreme and unquestionable Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, perhaps even Tauthority of monarchs was gone. Russia, during the period of anarchy that But the supreme and unquestionable followed the collapse of their former authority of the state was not. The authoritarian or totalitarian govern- American state was born and baptized ments. But it is not my purpose to set not in 1776 but in 1789, after the ratifi- forth the virtues of hereditary—and con- cation of a constitution was followed by stitutional—monarchies. It is to suggest

114 WQ Spring 1996 that the authority of the state, like the in English and other European lan- authority of a family, is inseparable from guages originally referred to cultivation. the very idea, and practice, of civiliza- For a long time it was inseparable from tion. agriculture; then it was applied meta- phorically to the cultivation of minds. “Civilize,” in English, appears first in 1601: “to make civil; to bring out of a VII state of barbarism; to instruct in the arts of life; to enlighten and refine.” In other Note now the title of Burckhardt’s words, the notions of civilization and great work: The Civilization of the civility preceded the later, and still pre- Renaissance in Italy. It should suggest sent, notion of culture. Culture depends something that has been greatly on civilization—not the other way obscured: that the concept of civilization around. is something older than the modern con- There are reasons to think that the cept of “culture,” and that the former chasm dividing conservatives and liber- appeared about the same time as the als in this country now is cultural—that modern institution of the state. During is, deeper than the differences over taxes the last 100 years we have, by and large, and welfare. But again: the problem is come to accept an idea of German provenance: that culture is something higher than mere civilization. This was a romantic notion. Civili- zation meant a certain material and govern- mental order, a bour- geois ideal. Culture meant the higher things of the mind—and of the soul. The English, said Germans both before and during World War Celebrating cultural roots: The model of a Viking boat is part of the pageantry on the Nazi-inspired Day of German Art in 1939. I, were a nation of shop- keepers, civilized, yes, but without much Kultur. The Germans wrongly stated. Those who—in my opin- were a Kulturvolk. We know where this ion, rightly—are worried about “multi- exaltation of Kultur over Zivilisation got culturalism” do not see that the real them. But elsewhere, too, this positing of problem is, rather, multicivilization: the the superiority of culture took root: breaking up of standards of civilization among American intellectuals who that in a state must be sufficiently uni- lamented the inadequacy of American tary. Culture may be tribal. Civilization culture (while richly profiting from is not. American civilization). So now we face something new in the This belief in the superiority of cul- long history of mankind. We can now ture to civilization is a dangerous one. have culture without civilization. With The Greeks had no word for culture. this achievement, the progressive notion They had other concepts and words: of the great chain of evolution—from “civic” and “civility,” which, like “polis” primitiveness to civilization to culture— and “politic” (wherefrom many of our has become absurd and laughable. words such as “city,” “citizen,” urbane,” Yes, you cannot have civilization with- and “urbanity” derive) were the oppo- out some culture. But when civilization sites of barbarity and barbarism. Culture breathes and lives and is strong, culture

The State 115 will arise; it will take care of itself. Must and order to guarantee the safety of citi- government promote culture at all? That zens so that they can prosper freely. But we is at least arguable. What is not arguable have long forgotten that it is more difficult is that government must protect civiliza- to be free than not to be free. Liberals as tion. When it fails to do so, government well as conservatives have contributed to as we know it dissolves, with first anarchy this kind of amnesia. The former have and then barbaric tyranny succeeding it. been taking civilization, and its progress, for granted; the latter seem not to under- hen a civilization functions, so do stand that freedom is not the root of civi- Wits public institutions. One hun- lization but its fruit, and that civilization dred years ago, American public schools, means the restriction of many a freedom. public hospitals, public parks, and other Primitivism, pornography, and multicul- public facilities and services were among turalism have been promoted, or at least the best in the world. Since that time, the defended, by many liberals. But we face very sense of what is “public” has decayed: another phenomenon, too: barbarism pro- our public schools, public hospitals, and moted by people who call themselves con- public transportation are shunned by servatives. Emerson wrote that “The cor- many people. (Notice only the debasing ruption of man is followed by the corrup- suggestion of the license plates of buses in tion of language.” The reverse is true; and many states: MASS TRANSIT). What the the much vaunted Information Explosion “privatization” of these institutions has may accelerate the corruption. meant is nothing but the replacement of one bureaucracy by another—and, almost he danger that threatens us—yes, always, the latter is of an inferior nature. There in the United States—is the (The same applies to the relationship of breakdown not of culture but of civilization federal to state bureaucracies.) There is itself—which, in turn, depends on the prop- absolutely no guarantee that the bureau- er authority of the state and on the proper cracy of a health insurance company will practices of government. These practices be more humane, or even more efficient, may be bureaucratic rather than democrat- than the federal civil servant looking over ic, exaggerated as well as constraining, your Medicare records, or that the Nevada abstractly humanitarian yet in reality inhu- Department of Revenue will be more man. Still our enemy is not the state, and accurate, or considerate, in computing not even government itself. It is the mis- your taxable income than the Internal conception of such terms as Progress and Revenue Service. Freedom—confusing masses of people in The purpose of government includes the name of an antigovernment populism, the protection of domesticity and privacy leading to anarchy first and to tyranny after- through the maintenance of sufficient law wards, or to a future novel mixture of both.

116 WQ Spring 1996