The Pin Factory Blog

My colleague Geoffrey Taunton-Collins argues that nationalism is a force for good, as the loyalty and fellow-feeling it generates are necessary to create high trust law-abiding societies. He says that examples of atrocities committed partially in the name of nationalism—the Rwandan genocide, the second world war and Holocaust, strife in the middle east—are all better explained by ethnic tribalism or religion. I disagree. Firstly I'm sceptical that successful modern societies are driven by nationalism, secondly I think it's impossible to disentangle the nationalist element in many of the terrible occurrences he lists, and thirdly I think that nationalism underlies some very bad policies adopted by many modern societies.

Why does an individual obey the law? One obvious reason is that the penalties for disobedience, weighted by the likeliness of their being incurred, often outweigh the benefits from breaking the law. A second reason, is that individuals believe there is some sort of justice in the laws. This is why people give "because it is against the law" as a reason independent of any further explanation for why a course of action ought not to be followed. Anecdotally, the arguments people give for the duty to obey the law—if these can be taken as also being the reasons they actually do obey the law—seem to go against Geoff's claim, centring on reciprocity, universality and fairness. And the cases where people disobey the law appear to go with my analysis. Consider illegal downloading: some estimates say PC games are illegally downloaded as many as 20 times as they are bought legally. People seem unswayed by the laws—brought about by the authority of the nation state they are supposedly loyal to—requiring them to buy games (or films, television programmes, music) legally. Because others are not following the law, and because the likelihood of punishment is low, they don't themselves.

Can nationalism and ethnic strife be disentangled? Certainly Hitler's regime looked no more favourably on the many proudly German Jews who had served the Kaiser honourably in the first world war than they did on any with Jewish ancestry. And certainly Nazism was centred on the idea of a Volk—a people—united despite the borders of Weimar Germany. But the purest form of an ideology is rarely what gets through and propagates throughout society, and the Dolchstosslegende—the idea that Germany didn't really lose the first world war, but was stabbed in the back by a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy—was a vital part of the Nazis' appeal. I think the general bleeding of racialist, ethnic and religious ideas into nationalism and national identity is inevitably tied into Middle Eastern conflicts and the two major central African genocides.

And finally, look at the policies nationalism produces. True, as Geoff points out, there is no necessary reason why nationalism should exclude anyone born outside the country, if they are willing to switch their loyalty to their destination nation, but in practice we know that's what happens. Taking the UK as an example, the tide of anti-immigration feeling has been rising and rising since Gordon Brown's 2007 pledge to provide "British jobs for British workers", culminating in the rise of UKIP and Tory policies like the 99,999 or less net inward migration pledge. Surely it can't be denied that a sense of nationalism, that the UK is collectively owned by only its current inhabitants, a sense of insider and outsider, is intimately connected to this ethically indefensible and economically incompetent trend?

As far as I can tell, actually-existing nationalism is not responsible for our generally law-abiding society, cannot be disentangled from many gross moral horrors, and is responsible for bad policy. Therefore I conclude that nationalism is a force for bad.

The nation state is—in its fundamental nature—a free and tolerant political system. National loyalty requires only fondness for a geographical location (and its history) which can be acquired by anyone who moves to a nation, as well as those born and brought up there. In principle national loyalty requires no significant revision of values, nor does it exclude people on the basis of their family, colour or any other unsavoury criteria. It is, taken on its own, a remarkably benign form of attachment.

Loyalty is necessary for political institutions to uphold their laws. Laws protecting private property, free speech and so on do not hold sway because they have been written down by a legislator but because those subject to them believe they are authoritative. This requires general acceptance of their content and the body charged with enforcing them, which in turn requires a loyalty and trust for that body and for other citizens. In non-nationalistic countries such as Kazakhstan trade can rely on its participants' having particular reason to trust one another. Nationalism avoids such pitfalls by enabling a trust of a pool of strangers – something which characterises flourishing societies.

The strongest ties among humans have proved to be religious, tribal-ethnic and national. They are typified by attachment to that which is familiar. The first two of these however, when elevated into political form, are intolerant of differing values and of differing bloodlines. The conflict between family love and religious obedience has characterised some of the worse strands of the Middle-East's history. In Africa tribal loyalties have underpinned devastating atrocities – in the 1994 Rwandan genocide for instance the Hutu people massacred the Tutsi (a group seen to have different physical characteristics). Twenty-two years earlier the Burundi Genocide had seen a reversed tragedy. Similarly fascism is not an extreme form of nationalism but an extreme form of tribalism—members of Hitler’s Aryan race were identified by their appearance and bloodline, not their attachment to a particular nation. We would do well to celebrate our often mocked pride for the rolling hills. Other attachments have proved much less tolerant of our differences and freedoms.

Another reason is philosophical. Where we happen to have been born and brought up is certainly arbitrary from a moral point of view – but this is no good reason to rule it out as mattering. Which mother we happen to have been born to is arbitrary, and yet no one claims we should shun her on that basis. Similarly we come across our friends arbitrarily, even if they have been chosen carefully from those we’ve met. My point is not that we should consider important all aspects of our lives that aren’t up to us, but rather that their being arbitrary shouldn’t be a reason not to think them important. In other words, arbitrariness should give us no reason to feel uneasy about the benefits that national attachment brings.

"It is only by recognizing the conflict between a given rule and the rest of our moral beliefs that we can justify our rejection of an established rule.  Even the success of an innovation by a rule-breaker, and the trust of those who follow him, has to be bought by the esteem he has earned by the scrupulous observation of most of the existing rules.  To become legitimized, the new rules have to obtain the approval of society at large - not by a formal vote, but by gradually speading acceptance.

"The successive changes in morals were therefore not a moral decline, even though they offended inherited sentiments, but a necessary condition to the rise of the open society of free men."

FA Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty

It's not just the tyranny of our elected rulers that we have to guard against. We must also guard against the exploitation of minorities by the majority and of the stifling tyranny of political correctness. As John Stuart Mill puts it in the early pages of On Liberty:

Protection…against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose…its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them…. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.

The Adam Smith Institute hosted a book launch on Tuesday at St. John’s Church at Smith Square, London; a paradoxical venue to invite Dr Yaron Brook, the president of Ayn Rand Institute, the advocate for Objectivist philosophy, to talk about his new book co-authored with Don Watkins Free Market Revolution: how Ayn Rand’s ideas can end big government.

Church halls are not probably the best venues to host a movement of committed atheists, for atheism is the epistemological foundation of the Objectivist movement that many people tend to glance over, including the US vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.  This is where, in principle, I have to part company with Objectivism, for I am a believer.  It would be wrong of me to promote a movement that argues against my fundamental belief in God.

Having said this, however, there is much in Ayn Rand’s philosophy that appeals to the advocates of free markets and small government, of which I am one.

Dr Edward Younkins writes about Objectivism:

Hierarchically, philosophy, including its metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical dimensions, precedes and determines politics which, in turn, precedes and determines economics. Rand bases her metaphysics on the idea that reality is objective and absolute. Epistemologically, the Randian view is that man’s mind is competent to achieve objectively valid knowledge of that which exists. Rand’s moral theory of self-interest is derived from man’ s nature as a rational being and end in himself, recognizes man’s right to think and act according to his freely-chosen principles, and reflects a man’s potential to be the best person he can be in the context of his existing circumstances. This leads to the notion of the complete separation of political power and economic power – that proper government should have no economic favours to convey. The role of the government is, thus, to protect man’s natural rights through the use of force, but only in retaliation and only against those who initiate the use of force. Capitalism, the resulting economic system, is based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.  For Rand, capitalism, the system of laissez-faire, is the only moral system.   

There is little that a proponent of a free market system can disagree with here.  And, as Dr Yaron Brook emphasised last night, our society has become increasingly collectivist.  No longer is the economic benefit of a man’s self-interest celebrated; rather, it’s condemned.

No longer is the economic contribution of an entrepreneur such as Bill Gates celebrated. Dr Brook was absolutely correct in his analysis that Bill Gates’ contribution to the betterment of the lives of countless people through Microsoft have been ignored or even berated for the fortunes he amassed through his entrepreneurial genius; it’s only now when Bill and Melissa Gates’ Foundation is giving the fortune away, that Bill Gates gains the ‘stamp of approval’ as a good guy by the masses.  The same analogy applies to the late Steve Jobs of Apple, and dare I say, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and countless other successful entrepreneurs.

Interestingly, Mr Jobs, when challenged about the ‘lack’ of his philanthropic activities, stated that his contribution to the world were his beautifully designed products that people lust after.  He was quite right, but not what the masses wanted to hear.  On the contrary, Apple, Google, Starbucks, Amazon etc. have been condemned as profit-crazed global thieves by the same people whose lives these firms have enriched.  Instead, governments, that impose taxes and make decisions on our behalf what to spend our hard-earned cash on, are applauded as altruistic institutions.

Poppycock. If I don’t like what Starbucks, or any other firm for that matter, sells, I can take my business elsewhere, but it’s very difficult for me to take my business away from the British taxman as a British subject.  And this is where the economic philosophy of Dr Brook and Watkins comes in. It is a refreshing perspective that argues for the return to the individual moral high ground against the collectivist coercion by the state.  It is time again to start celebrating wealth creation; this only comes if we, as a society, make a fundamental transformation from collectivism to moral individualism.

Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy and its proponents have much to contribute to the movement for small government and the man’s freedom to choose.  Free Market Revolution makes an important contribution to the debate; even if one does not accept the ontological and epistemological foundations of Objectivism.

The RSA has blogged about the Bleeding Heart Libertarians, who I’ve also written about in the past. The RSA give a fair outline of what the bleeding hearts believe:

BHL doesn’t, like most libertarian thought, believe that social justice is a natural by-product of market and non-state relationships which are themselves justified by other values, most notably the freedom of the individual. Instead, BHL believes that such relationships are only worthwhile to the extent to which they actively promote social justice and the well-being of the poor.  One leading BHL thinker, Matt Zwolinski, has suggested, for example, that unlike most other libertarians, BHLers would either reject or modify their prioritisation of market and non-state relationships if it could be shown that they do not benefit the poor and most vulnerable.

I take a more straightforwardly consequentialist view. If I discovered that the libertarian institutions I wanted (a “night watchman” state, perhaps with a modest safety net, although I doubt that would be necessary) were not the best way of allowing people to satisfy their preferences, I’d want whatever institutions did do that. That’s all any political ideology should offer – the best means to allowing people to do whatever they want to do.

The article is a little bit off-base when it contrasts Bleeding Heart Libertarians with common or garden libertarians:

They share the libertarian suspicion of the big state on economic issues and are critical of high tax, interventionist policies, ‘crony capitalism’ and the loose money policies of the Federal Reserve.

However, unlike some of the loudest elements in the Tea Party (or indeed in UKIP) who might share these economic views, they are also  supportive of civil liberties in the form of gay rights, anti-racism, internet freedom, legalising marijuana use, feminism and more open immigration.

They are also highly critical of American foreign policy opposing the ‘war on terror’, military action against Iran and other forms of intervention. (Although it must be reiterated here that BHL remains a dialogue of diverse views rather than a manifesto to which all sign up.)

Most of those things seem like pretty integral parts of the standard libertarian agenda to me, not the wacky innovations of the Bleeding Hearts. I’d certainly do a double take if I met a libertarian who was against liberalizing drug and immigration laws, but enthusiastic about more foreign intervention. (I don’t necessarily blame the RSA’s author for this, mind you – the number of old-fashioned conservatives who call themselves libertarians without any support for free people or, indeed, free markets is truly depressing.)

What sets the Bleeding Hearts apart from normal libertarians is their belief that social justice of the kind outlined by John Rawls is an important value which libertarian institutions are good at achieving. Matt Zwolinski briefly outlined this argument in this video. (Jacob Levy disagrees about the importance of social justice — some of the reasons he gives are why I prefer old-fashioned 'utility' to 'social justice'.)

In any case, it’s good to see more mainstream interest in libertarianism, particularly when it’s fair minded. With the right degree of open-mindedness, optimism, and confidence in the power of liberty to improve people’s lives, libertarians might have a uniquely appealing idea on their hands.

Matt Ridley, author of "Genome" and more recently "The Rational Optimist," gave Tuesday's annual Adam Smith Lecture before a packed audience at St Stephen's Club.  His title, "Adam Darwin," explored similarities between the insights and observations of Charles Darwin with those of Adam Smith who had written a century earlier.

One similarity is that evolution works in nature by a selective death rate.  It is not a random process which leads some to survive and others not.  The ones that make it are those with some mutation which increases their survival chances, even by a small amount.  Nature can build up incredibly complex mechanisms through a series of minute changes which do this.

Those who succeed in the market are often those with an innovation that brings them an advantage.  It might be new technology of new methods of achieving better productivity.  The firms that fail are again, not the result of a random process, but those which lack the crucial advantage that innovation has brought to others.

In the world of nature sex plays an important role in mixing up combinations of genes so that innovations occur more frequently than would otherwise be the case.  In the world of human activity there is an equivalent in which ideas can intermingle and interact, producing new combinations and innovations.  The more trade, exchange, and contact there is, the more there are likely to be new ideas to be tried out.  As in nature, the ones that bring advantages survive at the expense of those which do not.

Ridley stressed the co-operative nature of trade and exchange.  Human beings exchange things to the advantage of both, and do so uniquely among groups which have no kin or tribe relationship.  We co-operate with strangers to mutual advantage, and this has led to the extraordinary achievements that humanity has made.

Ridley's speech was an intellectual tour de force, elegantly delivered, and a superb contribution to the Institute's lecture series. The lecture will be uploaded to Youtube and posted on the blog shortly.