THE FATAL CONCEIT The Errors of Socialism phần 7 potx

THE FATAL CONCEIT

`subjective revolution' in economic theory of the 1870's, understanding

of human creation was dominated by animism - a conception from

which even Adam Smith's `invisible hand' provided only a partial

escape until, in the 1870's, the guide-role of competitively-determined

market prices came to be more clearly understood. Yet even now,

outside the scientific examination of law, language and the market,

studies of human affairs continue to be dominated by a vocabulary

chiefly derived from animistic thinking.

One of the most important examples comes from socialist writers.

The more closely one scrutinises their work, the more clearly one sees

that they have contributed far more to the preservation than to the

reformation of animistic thought and language. Take for instance the

personification of `society' in the historicist tradition of Hegel, Comte

and Marx. Socialism, with its `society', is indeed the latest form of those

animistic interpretations of order historically represented by various

religions (with their `gods'). The fact that socialism is often directed

against religion hardly mitigates this point. Imagining that all order is

the result of design, socialists conclude that order must be improvable

by better design of some superior mind. For this socialism deserves a

place in an authoritative inventory of the various forms of animism -

such as that given, in a preliminary way, by E. E. Evans-Pritchard in

his Theories of Primitive Religion (1965). In view of the continuing

influence of such animism, it seems premature even today to agree with

W. K. Clifford, a profound thinker who, already during Darwin's

lifetime, asserted that `purpose has ceased to suggest design to instructed

people except in cases where the agency of men is independently

probable' (1879:117).

The continuing influence of socialism on the language of intellectuals

and scholars is evident also in descriptive studies of history and

anthropology. As Braudel asks: `Who among us has not spoken about

the class struggle, the modes of production, the labour force, the surplus value,

the relative pauperisation, the practice, the alienation, the infrastructure, the

superstructure, the use value, the exchange value, the primitive accumulation, the

dialectics, the dictatorship of the proletariat ...?' (supposedly all derived

from or popularised by Karl Marx: see Braudel 1982b).

In most instances, underlying this sort of talk are not simple

statements of fact but interpretations or theories about consequences or

causes of alleged facts. To' Marx especially we also owe the substitution

of the term `society' for the state or compulsory organisation about

which he is really talking, a circumlocution that suggests that we can

deliberately regulate the actions of individuals by some gentler and

kinder method of direction than coercion. Of course the extended,

spontaneous order that has been the main subject matter of this volume

1 0 8

OUR POISONED LANGUAGE

would have been as little able to `act' or to `treat' particular persons as

would a people or a population. On the other hand, the `state' or,

better, the `government', which before Hegel used to be the common

(and more honest) English word, evidently connoted for Marx too

openly and clearly the idea of authority while the vague term `society'

allowed him to insinuate that its rule would secure some sort of

freedom.

Thus, while wisdom is often hidden in the meaning of words, so is

error. Naive interpretations that we now know to be false, as well as

profoundly helpful if often unappreciated advice, survive and determine

our decisions through the words we use. Of particular relevance to our

discussion is the unfortunate fact that many words that we apply to

various aspects of the extended order of human cooperation carry

misleading connotations of an earlier kind of community. Indeed, many

words embodied in our language are of such a character that, if one

habitually employs them, one is led to conclusions not implied by any

sober thought about the subject in question, conclusions that also

conflict with scientific evidence. It was for this reason that in writing

this book I imposed upon myself the self-denying ordinance never to use

the words `society' or `social' (though they unavoidably occur

occasionally in titles of books and in quotations I draw from statements

of others; and I have also, on a few occasions, let the expressions `the

social sciences' or `social studies' stand). Yet, while I have not hitherto

used these terms, in this chapter I wish to discuss them - as well as some

other words that function similarly - to expose some of the poison

concealed in our language, particularly in that language which concerns

the orders and structures of human interaction and interrelationship.

The somewhat simplified quotation by Confucius that stands at the head

of this chapter is probably the earliest expression of this concern that has

been preserved. An abbreviated form in which I first encountered it

apparently stems from there being in Chinese no single word (or set of

characters) for liberty. It would also appear, however, that the passage

legitimately renders Confucius's account of the desirable condition of any

ordered group of men, as expressed in his Analects (tr. A. Waley, 1938:XIII,

3, 171-2): `If the language is incorrect ... the people will have nowhere to

put hand and foot'. I am obliged to David Hawkes, of Oxford, for having

traced a truer rendering of a passage I had often quoted in an incorrect

form.

The unsatisfactory character of our contemporary vocabulary of political

terms results from its descent largely from Plato and Aristotle who, lacking

the conception of evolution, considered the order of human affairs as an

arrangement of a fixed and unchanging number of men fully known to the

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