Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

I a t ion. T his ex p I a ins s u c h ot her wi s e i nex p I i ca b 1e
phenomena as the willingness, even desire, of the
"enemies of the people' to confess, during the Soviet
purge-trials, to nearly any charges levelled against
them. (37) For such is the route to psychological peace
and, no matter how remote, the possible return to the
flock. As Nisbet has explained in a particularly insightful
passage, "the State becomes powerful not by
what itta ke s from the i nd i v i d ua I, but by what itta ke s
from the spiritual and social associations which compete
with it for man's devotion."
One can now see the role that violence plays in
the totalitarian state. Since a totalitarian order is
possible only in the absence of intermediate associat
ionsat 0 t a lit a ria n r u 1 e r, un I e s s his r i set0 powe r
itself follows upon the disintegration of the old order
and the a tom i z a t ion 0 f soc i e t y, mus t t a k e me as ures to
create atomization. Hence the violent assault upon
all intermediate associations. And since there is a
natural tendency for such associations to reemerge, the
per pet u a t Ion 0 fat om i z a t ion r eq u ire s the per i od i c
recourse to violent measures to forestall such an
occurrence.
The foregoing highlights the salient role intermediate
associations play in the preservation of a relatively
free and stable social order, and some have contended
that this poses a serious question for the libe
r tar ian • The f r e e rna r ketanarchis t 0 f ten a ppea r s to
be oblivious to such associations. His alternative to
the state is simply The Individual, restricted only
by the" Ii ber tar ian non-aggression axiom" and his own
voluntary contractual agreements. The role of custom
and tradition is downplayed, if not held in outright
contempt. And the result is a view of the social order
as a mechanical process, changeable at will and with no
side effects, and held together largely by the heavy
hand of the government in a statist society, and purely
by contractual agreement in the anarchist. The libertarian's
emphasis is invariably on the individual in
the abstract, the completely rational and unemotional
individual. The focus is not on attachment, but on release;
and not release from the state to permit attachmen
t too the r comm un i tiesand ass 0 cia t ions, but 0 n r e ­
lease, per se. But atomization, goes the argument,
is the same whether it is created by the Leviathan
State or the "Libertarian Nonagression Axiom." This,
however, ra I ses the quest ion of whether a society constructed
along pure laissez faire lines could ever be
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