Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

or collective communities. As Jerome Tuccile once
wrote, nObv i ous ly, some people prefer a collectivist
style of life and, as long as they do it voluntarily
wit h 0 u t for c i ngot her s t 0 sup p 0 r t them, therei s no
reason why they cannot 'coexist' peacefully alongside
the i rca pit a lis tic ne i g h b 0 r s • Peopie co u I d then compare
differing life styles and perhaps adapt varying
e I erne n t sintot h e i rown wa y 0 f I i f e • n ( 41 ) I n a ve r y
s i mil a r v e i n Ka r I He s s rna i n t a ins t hat agenera I libe r ­
tar ian or laissez faire framework
i s the 0 n 1 y for m 0 f soc i a I / e con om i corgani ­
zation that could tolerate and even bless a
kibbutz operating in the middle of Harlem,
a hippie selling hashish down the street and,
a few blocks farther on, a firm of engineers
ou t to do in Det roi t wi th a low-cos t nuclear
vehicle.
The kibbutz would represent, in
effect, a voluntary socialism... The hash
seller would represent institutionalized-but
voluntary -- daydreaming, and the engineers
would represent unregulated creativity.
All would represent laissez faire capitalism
ina c t ion and non e wo u 1 d nee d a po 1 i t i ca I
off iceholder or a single bureaucrat to help,
hinder, civilize or stimulate.(42)
While the foregoing may be overly fanciful, it
. doe s ill u s t rat e what the a narchistin pa r ticu I a r, and
the libertarian in general, believes to be the innate
ability of a libertarian legal order to reconcile
otherwise incompatible life styles. This raises an
interesting question. Libertarians tend to believe
that in the absence, or even the minimization, of the
state the market would become all but universal; buying
and selling would become practically the only relationship
between individuals. I suspect, however, that
t his i s not what w0 u 1 d hap pen • The prob I em i s t hat
Ii ber tar ians tend to ignore the social sphere. When
they look at society they see only the individual and
the state and they see these as antagonistic. This is
true in many cases, especially today. But as noted in
a n ear lie r c hap t e r ( 43) i tis his t or i cal I y fa 1se: ind i ­
vidual ism and the state both emerged with the break-up
oft h e c omm un i t Y s t r u c t ureof the me dieval w0 rId . M0 r e
importantly, the social and psychological dimensions of
man tend to be ignored. This has important ramifications
for the free market anarchist perspective of what
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