started reading the Economics of Freedom

is it online anywhere?

The introduction speculates on people’s assumptions, and sets out in advance that the market brings pain and misery and we should seek a more humane alternative. But the “humanitarianism” of an economic system doesn’t matter and, even if it did, the booklet’s humanitarianism is one based on a psychogenetic aversion to even the most innocuous inequality.

Then, it exposes some “myths”, but only casts itself into mythology by doing so. First the market brings misery and pain, then it’s held up as a saviour, then it doesn’t exist. It then critiques a economic system which by its own admission is imaginary. One can only guess who they’re countering, Young Conservatives in the student union bar by the sounds of it.

This is followed by the obligatory, and somewhat sickly, kind words for mother earth. Here the booklet hits full flow with all the clichés about how good guys don’t win, the evils of the short term rush for profit, and all manner of value laden assumptions about the motivations of sundry middle class strata. It expresses nothing more than the self-righteous indignation of the Victorian temperance society. A final tilt towards decadence theory sets us up for another laughable objection to this-and-that “obscenity” and speculation made all the more rank for its lack of implications.

“What will motivate people to work if they are not paid?”, the booklet asks. But people are paid. True, there will likely be no pay when the world ends because of capitalism, but it won’t be in people’s lifetimes. Anyway, the answer is solidarity. The answer to all our questions is solidarity. But we have no questions, only the booklet does.

“The level of selfishness or social duty, individualism or solidarity, that exists in society is the result of social structures and economic imperatives”. But the magnanimous sacrifice of the Libertarian Communists is in vain, for it’s a mere matter of fashion, of psychological predilection, of random genetic variation. “Our consciousness would change if our society and economy were to change”, don’t tell me… …we’d be more humane. Assimilation into the collective whole will squeeze the selfish demon from us, solving the problem of incongruous values that previously made communism impossible. The error here being that people avoid communism because it’s Fabianist waffle, not because they’re callous.

There is a sixth-form level attempt to set out the structure of a modern Scandinavian democracy, and a description of the various bureaucratic instruments required to ensure only those with a “genuine need” get violins and holidays. Sound familiar comrades? The astonishingly juvenile promotion of the power of electronics is forgivable only due to Castoriadis’ similar display in 1957, one can only assume it’s the zeal of a new convert. A sequence including two “musts” and one “feelings” heralds the unbelievable assertion that “the environment is one of the most significant non-economic considerations”. One can only assume that this is a result of positioning-by-committee, full on shopping list politics.

Anyway, as anyone knows, if solidarity gives you a hard-on then PARECON is the economic system for you, and it’s a dish served up cold by the booklet. At least our consciousness will have been homogenised by the struggle so we’ll all agree on what’s useful and kind. In the likely event you don’t buy any of this, the conclusion apologises appropriately and gets back onto expounding the principles of Quakerism. The pamphlet gives us a detailed model of anthill-communism and then tells us we don’t need one. As for “Keeping it real is the key”. Well, I wonder. I really do.