No! To tell you the truth, I’m never voting again. Like marriage, no
matter who you choose it turns out bad. Unless you’re rich. They get everything
they want—well, fine! One thing I know: we’re never going to win through the
system. Voting has never been the American way.
–Al Bundy, the “Chicago Wine Party” episode of Married with Children
Let me begin by presenting Mises’s treatment of the philosophy of antiharmonism:
As the antiharmonists see it,
community of interests exists only
within the group among its members. The interests of each group and of each
of its members are implacably opposed to those of all other groups and of each
of their members. So it is “natural” there should be perpetual war among
various groups. This natural state of war of each group against every other
group may sometimes be interrupted by periods of armistice, falsely labeled
periods of peace. It may also happen that sometimes in warfare a group cooperates in alliances with other
groups. Such alliances are temporary makeshifts of politics. They do not in the long run affect the
inexorable natural conflicts of interest. Having,
in cooperation with some allied groups, defeated several of the hostile groups,
the leading group in the coalition turns against its previous allies in order
to annihilate them too and to establish its own world supremacy. (Liberty
Fund’s Edition of Theory and History, 28,
bold emphasis mine)
Initially, I thought that I could explain this passage using
the “bad/super-bad” explanation (maybe one could call this the “McLovin
Conjecture” because of the “super-bad” component) provided by Étienne de la Boétie
in his book The Politics of Obedience: The
Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. La Boétie mentions that within our ruling
class we have a group of “favorites” (the bad) who form an alliance with the
“tyrant” (the super-bad); however, this alliance is only ephemeral in nature
because the “favorites” end up losing both their fortunes and their lives to
the “super-bad” tyrant:
These favorites should not recall
so much the memory of those who have won great wealth from tyrants as of those
who, after they had for some time amassed it, have lost to him their property
as well as their lives; they should consider not how many others have gained a
fortune, but rather how few of them have kept it….Most often, after becoming
rich by despoiling others, under the favor of his protection, they find
themselves at last enriching him with their own spoils. (75)
But then I asked myself, what
if instead of conceiving of the antiharmonist philosophy in terms of
“bad/super-bad,” one were to consider it in terms of “good and super-bad.” After
all, if Fogell or McLovin stands for “super-bad,”
because he bought the alcohol with his fake I.D. and because he went on a wild
joy ride with the out-of-control police officers, then I suppose it is safe to say
that Evan’s character in the movie stands for “good,” because Evan was the responsible and mature one in the
group of friends. But what then does this “Evan-McLovin Interpretation” of the
philosophy of antiharmonism imply? I
think that it implies quite simply that libertarians should not try to achieve liberty through the political system. Let me now explain how I came to this
conclusion.
In his first ever treatise in the English language, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, Hans-Hermann
Hoppe tells us a riveting story that nicely illustrates the “Evan-McLovin
Interpretation” of the philosophy of antiharmonism in action! In Hoppe’s rendition of the history of how
absolutism emerged out of feudalism, the “super-bad”
or “McLovin” component of the story is
what he refers to as the creation of “super-feudalism”
out of plain-old vanilla-flavored feudalism. The “good” or “Evan”
component of this saga is played by the heroes of the story, namely, the
inchoate agorists consisting of international traders and merchants who just
happen to be audacious enough to defy the local feudal overlord in their quest
for freedom.
The “Evan” component of traders and merchants forms an
alliance with the “McLovin” component; the “McLovin” component just happens to
be a geographically distant feudal lord. This “Evan-McLovin” alliance
cooperates because it is perceived to be a mutually beneficial arrangement,
namely, both sides will benefit by seeing the local lord overthrown. Without
the existing local lord, the “Evan” component will benefit from this alliance
by receiving “partial freedom” from the onerous requirements of feudalism. In
other words, we are about to see the Janus-like nature of “McLovin.” To form
this alliance, “McLovin” puts his best face forward by coming across as
“magnanimous McLovin,” the lord who grants freedom! The “McLovin”
component—this geographically distant feudal lord—benefits from this alliance because
the feudal lord gets to extend his territory of control, at the expense of the
other lord.
Now, following the philosophy of antiharmonism, what is
supposed to come next in our feudal plot line? Naturally, a betrayal of one
member of the alliance by the other member! This is precisely what happens. After the alliance overthrows the existing
local lord, the “McLovin” component proceeds to show the “Evan” component its
other much nastier face. The “McLovin” component earns the title of “super-bad”
at this point by proceeding to transform itself into what Hoppe calls the
“super-feudalist.” What this means is that the “McLovin” component of this tale
betrays the “Evan” component by breaking the promise to grant freedom. Instead,
the exact opposite happens because a
new layer of exploitation is imposed on the “Evan” component. Now the “McLovin”
component has achieved the ultimate goal of the philosophy of antiharmonism. Everyone,
the existing local lord and the merchants and traders (the “Evan” component),
is subjected now to the unquestioned lordship of this new “super-McLovin.” The
alliance of freedom turned into the alliance from hell as everything
retrogressed.
Just in case you think I am making all of this up, let me
give you the stern and academic version of this antiharmonist philosophy story
in the words of Hoppe:
In their endeavor to free
themselves from the exploitative interventions of the various feudal lords, the
merchants had to look for natural allies. Understandably enough, they found
such allies among those from the class of feudal lords who, though comparatively
more powerful than their noble fellows, had the centers of their power at a
relatively greater distance from the commercial towns seeking assistance. In
aligning themselves with the merchant class, they sought to extend their power
beyond its present range at the expense of other, minor lords. In order to achieve this goal they first
granted certain exemptions from the “normal” obligations falling upon the
subjects of feudal rule to the
rising urban centers, thus assuring their existence as places of partial freedom, and offered protection from the
neighboring feudal powers. But as soon
as the coalition had succeeded in its joint attempt to weaken the local lords
and the merchant towns’ “foreign” feudal ally had thereby become established as
a real power outside of its own traditional territory, it moved ahead and
established itself as a feudal super power, i.e., as a monarchy, with a
king who superimposed his own
exploitative rules onto those of the already existing feudal system.
Absolutism had been born; and as this was nothing but feudalism on a larger
scale, economic decline again set in,
the towns disintegrated, and stagnation and misery returned. (A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism,
86-87, bold emphasis mine)
One can further see this “Evan-McLovin Interpretation” of
the philosophy of antiharmonism at work when looking at the history of the
American Revolution. Just like the feudal example above, the American
Revolution saw the emergence of an “Evan-McLovin” alliance against a common
enemy, in this case Great Britain. The
“Evan” component of the American Revolution was lulled into an alliance with
the “McLovin” component based on promises of liberty and freedom. “Magnanimous
McLovin” makes his return! True to form, the alliance was followed by a
betrayal since the promises of liberty did not materialize. What did
materialize was just the replacement of one tyranny with another.
The nature of the “Evan-McLovin” alliance in the American
Revolution is put tersely by Howard Zinn. The “Evan” component is played by the
“substantial middle class,” and the “McLovin” component is played by the “upper
classes”:
Those upper classes, to rule, needed to make concessions to the middle
class, without damage to their own wealth or power, at the expense of
slaves, Indians, and poor whites. This
bought loyalty. And to bind that loyalty with something more powerful even
than material advantage, the ruling group found, in the 1760s and 1770s, a
wonderfully useful device. That device
was the language of liberty and equality, which could unite just enough whites to fight a Revolution against England, without ending either slavery or
inequality. (A People’s History of
the United States, 73-74, bold emphasis mine)
Just as the alliance feudal lord, the soon to be
“super-McLovin,” promised freedom from the onerous feudal rules but eventually
betrayed his “Evan” component in order to establish an indomitable lordship, so
too the American upper classes, as soon as they got what they wanted, betrayed
their alliance members and successfully established a new indomitable lordship.
What do they, the upper classes, want? Paraphrasing Charles Beard, Zinn states
that “the rich must, in their own interest, either control the government
directly or control the laws by which government operates” (106). One can
really see all of these points coming to a head—the phony liberty alliance
followed by betrayal—by looking at what happened when the Declaration of
Independence was read aloud in Boston:
When the Declaration of
Independence was read, with all its flaming radical language, from the town
hall balcony in Boston, it was read by Thomas Crafts, a member of the Loyal
Nine group, conservatives who had
opposed militant action against the British. Four days after the reading, the Boston Committee of Correspondence
ordered the townsmen to show up on the
Common for a military draft. The rich, it turned out, could avoid the draft by paying for
substitutes; the poor had to serve.
This led to rioting, and shouting: “Tyranny
is Tyranny let it come from whom it may.” (A People’s History of the United States, 91-92, bold emphasis mine)
The people of Boston just got “cock-blocked” by “McLovin!” The
alliance was formed under the assumption that it would bring about liberty and
freedom for the “Evan” component. What actually happened is that the philosophy
of antiharmonism kicked in; the “Evan” component was lured in to an alliance
with the “McLovin” component, which just was rendered nugatory. Now the true
face of the “McLovin” component has been revealed to the people causing them to
riot. Not liberty but ordering people into a military draft is that true face.
Not surprisingly, Zinn sagaciously observes, “new lords, new laws.” But the “McLovin” component got what it
wanted. The Declaration of Independence had been read and so the British ruling
class was formally out and the new ruling class was now in charge.
To conclude, I will be bold enough to state that the
“Evan-McLovin Interpretation” of the philosophy of antiharmonism is probably one of the first lessons
anarchists learned during the French Revolution. In what Peter Marshall
calls “the earliest anarchist manifesto in continental Europe,” we read this
brilliant passage from Jean Varlet’s work:
What a social monstrosity, what a
masterpiece of Machiavellism [sic] is this revolutionary government. For any
rational being, government and
revolution are incompatible. (Demanding
the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, 451, bold emphasis mine)
One cannot change the system by working with the government
or ruling class elements, the “McLovins.” That is the point. I have tried to
illustrate that alliances with the “McLovin” component with their promises of
freedom and liberty are nothing but legerdemain, trickery, deception,
prestidigitation, call it whatever you want. The “Evan” component thinking that
it is getting liberty is actually enslaving itself by trying to work with some
government or “McLovin” component. The merchants tried to work with the
geographically distant feudal lord to get freedom but that blew up in their
faces. Similarly, the middle class Americans tried to work with their colonial
rulers in order to win freedom for themselves. “The men who engineered the
revolt were largely members of the colonial ruling class” (A People’s History of the United States, 101). Again, this working
with the government or existing ruling group backfired for the seekers of
liberty in America too. One can find other examples of the preachers of
liberty—the “McLovins” of history—turning into the barons of tyrannical hell
the second they get the opportunity to enslave. They will turn on you in a
heartbeat. One of my books on the French Revolution aptly put it this way:
“Robespierre the apostle of liberty” in 1793 became “Robespierre the most
infamous of tyrants.” Even in classical examples, we again see this betrayal of
the seekers of liberty. The “Evans” of ancient Syracuse formed an alliance with
Denis or Dionysius in order to save their city from the invading Carthaginians.
Like all good McLovin’s, when Dionysius returned to the city victorious over
the invaders, he transformed “himself from captain to king, and then from king
to tyrant” (The Politics of Obedience:
The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, 54-55).
So what advice can I offer to Evan and McLovin, the two
movie characters whom I used throughout my article? Well, when you head off to
college next year, maybe that “alliance” plan of living together as roommates should
seriously be reconsidered! Don’t do it Evan! For us, the lesson is don’t work
through the system or with members of the ruling class because there is a high
probability of getting stabbed in the back by the phony “liberty” alliance
member.
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