POL& (1989) (9)2 3-8

HUMAN NATURE AND THE UTOPIANISM OF THE NEW RIGHT

Ian Carter

‘COMMUNISM is fine in theory, but you can’t force people to be equal. And where’s the incen- tive to work? Communism goes against human nature’. Such is the ‘pub talk’ criticism of communism we hear so often; the claim that communists have been unrealistic in their demands, both of human nature and of their own powers to manipulate it. Why do we not hear the same sort of criticism directed against right-wing libertarians and their ideological mentors such as Hayek, Friedman and Nozick? Why, that is, do we not hear it said that ‘right wing libertarianism goes against human nature’? Perhaps it is assumed that the radicals of the right do not have an underlying theory of human nature, standing as they do for the freedom of the individual and opposed as they are to any attempts by governments consciously to shape human nature. But such an assumption must surely be false, because there is a sense in which any prescriptive political theory rests on certain premises about human nature, however implicit. This article explores some of the assumptions which right wing libertarians make about human nature. It aims to show that the libertarian, like any other radical, has a conception of an ideal human, and that in this respect, he is as open as any other radical to the charge of utopianism.

Right-wing libertarians call themselves the ‘New Right’ (Seldon, 1985), a term which will be adopted here. What we mean to claim, in accusing this New Right of ‘utopianism’, is that they ‘conceive, propose, or advocate impracticably ideal projects or schemes for social welfare’.’ This definition might be objected to on the grounds that it automatically casts utop- ianism in a bad light. However, its use here is not intended to suggest that utopianism cannot under any circumstances be defended, but only as a means to showing that certain grounds for criticising communism or socialism might also be grounds for criticising libertarianism; that a weapon wielded by the old right can now be wielded against the new. Another objec- tion might be to say that the New Right is not composed exclusively of libertarians. But while this is true, it is also the case that many critiques of the New Right have been too general, playing on the contradictions between libertarianism and consematism, and have thus left the pure libertarian arguments standing.

The “on-Substantive’ View of Human Nature

One might at first be persuaded that the New Right’s tendency reganling human nature is simply to ‘take people as they are’ as the starcing point for any political prescriptions. This being Nozick‘s starting point, his discussion in the third section of Anarchy, State and Uropia (1974) concludes strongly against the possibility of devising a single utopia suitable for all people to live in. ‘Wittgenstein, Elizabeth Taylor, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Merton, Yogi Berra . . . Bobby Fischer, Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, you, and your parents. Is there d l y one kind of life which is best for each of these people?’ (Nozick, 1974, p. 310). An obvious answer to Nozick would be that these people m only as diverse as they arc because they are themselves products of different societies, or of dflerent aspects of an imperfm, non- homogeneous society, rather than products of a perfect utopian society. But Nozick must be aware of this answer. His view is, more generally, one opposed to any ideas suggesting conscious attempts to shape human nature ‘for the better‘. The view is that such p a t diver sity will always exist in the real world and that any attempt to make human nature more uniform will be at best useless (because it is an impossible task) and at worst dangerous and wrong (because even if possible, n w n e has the right to perfom it). What is special about Nozick’s ‘framework for utopia’ is that in it, ‘no one has the right to impose his utopian vision upon others’ (Nozick, 1974, p 312).

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Hayek, too, argues from man’s inevitable ignorance and a subjectivist moral epistemology to the view that ‘no man or group of men possesses the capacity to determine conclusively the potentialities of other human beings’, and that even if we were not so ignorant, genetic diver sity would still impose limits on environmentalism: ‘we must not overlook the fact that individuals are very di5erent from the outset’ (Hayek, 1960, p 88).

There is a simple argument about human nature which often lies behind the views expressed above, which is designed to refute Marxist and other ideals of the good society, and which we shall call the argument from personal identity.2 The argument from personal identity asks us: what reason could zue possibly have for desiring a society whose existence depends on a radical transformation of human nature? It seems c o m t to believe, with Berry (1986), that human nature ‘stakes out the space’ within which political theory can be of relevance to us, and there seems therefore to be no point in jrrt constructing an ideal society, and then design- ing a certain kind of man to live in it. If we are not this certain kind of man, then why should we desire this ideal society? Along these lines, Minogue has suggested that communism ‘is not a possible condition for human beings’ (Minogue, 1985, p 222), given that it must presuppose ‘a transformation of the human condition so radical as hardly to count as a human condition at all’ (p 160). Linked to the argument from personal identity is a particular view of human nature, which we shall call the ‘non-substantive’ view. The holder of this view refuses to specify any ideal of human nature as part of his political prescriptions. While he need not see human nature as unchanging, his claim is that the cause of such changes should not be the conscious, rational plans of humans themselves.

The problem is, however, that the view of human nature outlined above is normally seen as a premise for conservatism, and must certainly place limits on the desirability of deliberate societal change. And the New Right is not so much conservative as radical. Its aim has been described as a ‘transformation of the popular consciousness’, its methods as having ‘more in common with revolutionary leftism, five year plans and the year zero, than . . . with traditional British political practice’ (Duncan, 1987). It Seems contradictory, therefore, for the New Right not to have a positive ideal of human nature (not to question ‘the way people are’) if it is admitted that, given the extent of their proposed transformation of society, it must presuppose some change in the human condition.

The ‘End-State’View

What form could this more positive and radical view of human nature take? A radical view of human nature usually involves the positing of certain desirable but repressed characteristics (unrealized potentials) as existent in contemporary humans. It identifies a repressive feature of society as responsible for the distortion of human nature (and thus for most contemporary social evils) and proposes the removal of that repressive feature in order to ‘liberate’ people’s ‘true’ nature. According to Marxists, for example, this feature is capitalism. Capitalist relations of production are alienating and dehumanising because they impede creativity, sociability and self-determination. Their removal is therefore seen as the key to making humans more creative, sociable and self-determined.

New Right thinking may be presented as proceeding in exactly the same way. At present, the repressed features of human nature are individual autonomy, self-reliance and moral responsibility. The repressive feature of society is state intervention, as it has appeared and increased in and during the twentieth century. State intervention in the workings of the market denies people’s M o m and ability for autonomous choice, the welfare state encour- ages dependency and resignation in the poor by taking away the need for a sense of self- reliance, and the transfer of responsibility for care of the needy from real people to the impersonal state leads to an abdication of moral responsibility by the rich, and to less altruism in general.

The radical’s account of present day evils always gives some guide as to the direction of his

HUMAN NATURE AND THE UTOPIANISM OF THE NEW RIGHT 5

proposed change, and the New Right is no exception. From the above account, therefore, a kind of New Right ideal man emerges. He is self-reliant and an autonomous fm chooser, he minds his own business rather than forcing his morality upon others but is at the same time more altruistic than present day man, and he is productive, energetic and resourceful in the market-place. This is the kind of person the New Right would like to see us become as a result of the implementation of their policies.

We shall call this second possible view of human nature the ‘end-state’ view. It is this view which, given New Right policies, is open to the charge of utopianism. The validity of that chirge must now be argued, prior to an examination of the relationship between the end-state view on the one hand and the non-substantive view on the other.

Why the ‘End-State’ View is Utopian

It has been said that a radical end-state view of human nature involves firstly the assertion of the existence of a true and essential element of human nature which has yet to be made fully manifest, and secondly a proposed method of liberation. But how can we judge b e e n two competing theories of human nature which simply posit a repressed and invisible nature as existent within us? Clearly, we must have good reasons for believing that it is at least possi- ble for the repressed nature to make itself manifest. We must, that is, judge the means of change proposed by the radical, and assess the realizability of his preferred end-state. It is usually on the basis of the realizability of p r c f e d end-states, that we feel justified in calling one theory more utopian than another.

The two characteristics of human nature we may take to be most important in the New Right’s preferred end-state are increased self-reliance (because of the necessity of independ- ence where there is no welfare state) and altruism (because there will always be some unfortu- nates who, without it, would live inhumanly or stawe). There is strong evidence that these characteristics (most especially the latter) are unlikely to be brought about by duc ing the size of the state.

There is evidence from the past, about how people are likely to behave in the absence of a welfare state (we lack comparable evidence about their behaviour in a communist society). It is surprising that the New Right, rather than their critics, arc the fvst to cite this historical evidence. David G m n echoes Thatcher in praising the values of the Victorian age. ‘There is no automatic association between the provider state and altruism’, he writes. ‘Historically it undermined the spontaneous institutions for mutual aid and charitable assistance evolved over the centuries’. And again, ‘the nineteenth century high point of laissat-fairc was also the high point of charitable endeavour’ (Gmn, 1985, p 13). G m n does not provide any empirical evidence for this ‘high point of charitable endeavour‘, but even given such evidence, it would still be reasonable to object that such a ‘high point’ was neverthdes not high enough. And to object in this way would not be merely to register a value disagreement with Gmn, because what Green has left no mom for is a convincing explanation of the gradual p w t h of the welfare state since the last century (was it false needs and false consciousness?). Furthermore, if spontaneous charitable assistance can only be ‘evolved over centuries’, then either Mrs Thatcher is proceeding too hastily with her withdrawal of benefits, or she is really indiflerent to the plight of the next ten or so generations of needy. (Perhaps a few deaths would make utopia a ‘trimmer’ and more efficient place to live in?).

We can see then, that there is no automatic association between the minimal state and altruism. What of self-reliance? There are surely many people who will not necessarily stand on their own feet and develop and fulfil their capacities merely by being left alone. As Duncan writes, ‘people do not develop through some kind of spontaneous emergence of the faculties, out of the blue as it were, but are heavily dependent on ckumstances’ (Dug-, 1989, pp 311-12). The New Right often claim to havewon the ideological battle for M o m , that ‘negative’ fmdom best reflects people’s common understanding of the word, and that given

6 IAN CARTER

this, to leave people alone is to set them k. It might be questioned whether New Right policies really increase M o r n , even according to their own definition of the word. But this need not be argued here, because to win the battle for M o m is not to win the battle for human nature. We can concede the former of these and still add that in order to do something a person must not only be free to do it but also possess the resources necessary to do it. The account is surely hollow without an addition along these lines. A self-reliant person is neces- sarily one who txcrciscs some of his M o r n , and the ability to exercise one’s W o r n is not guaranteed by freedom alone. The New Right tendency to treat people as autonomous pc’ se, therefore, seems utterly utopian. New Right ideal humans, as fully autonomous agents, can and should be left alone, but not everyone is at present a New Right ideal human. We have certainly witnessed a move away from the tendency to ‘take people as they are’. It is the tend- ency not to take full account of the way people are and to posit the ideal human as more mani- fest in the existent human than it really is, which makes the radical policies utopian.

Two further points begin to suggest that the belief of many of the New Rig5t in the possi- bility of increased altruism in their ideal society is not only unrealistic, but a fapde. The first is an internal contradiction. If the New Right were to condemn welfare provision of allkinds, they might be accused of being inhuman, but they could at least then consistently claim to be encouraging self-reliance (according to the New Right method of encouraging self-reliance). If, on the other hand, charitable provision is to be as extensive as they say they would like it to be, then how are the poor to be cured of their sense of dependency?

The second point is that Hayek has explicitly referred to ‘altruism and solidarity’ as outmoded instincts evolved in and appropriate for huntergatherer societies. Under capitalism the greatest good is said to be generated by the healthy competition involved in each pursuing his own personal benefit, and so according to Hayek, ever since humans became capitalists they have been mistaken in their continued belief that altruism and solidarity ‘are ‘good‘ instin~ts.~ This account directly contradicts any reason the New Right could have for regret- ting the general decrease in altruism supposedly caused by the expansion of the state. (While the fact that we still see altruism as ‘good‘ provides a motive for the appearance of such a regret).

Reconciling the Two Views?

Are the non-substantive and the end-state views of human nature compatible, given the argument from personal identity implied by the former view? At first we might have said that the views are compatible, given that the end-state view does not aim to change human nature but only to realize characteristics already existing in human nature (it takes people as they feu& are), and given that the means to the liberation of such characteristics is non-inter- vention, exactly the policy implied by the non-substantive view. It could be argued along these lines that the policy of non-intervention as a means to one’s prefemd end-state is a special feature which marks the New Right off from other radicals, since it follows exactly from the rejection of social engineering and of the conscious shaping of human nature. But now we have discovered that the end-state in terms of human nature most likely to follow as a come quence of non-intervention differs notably from the New Right’s preferred end-state. In this ‘New Right pro&b& end-state’, we find that some humans are self-reliant but selfish while others are neither self-reliant nor the beneficiaries of altruism. The original compatibility has therefore broken down.

One possible escape for the New Right might be to deny any end-state view of human nature and to affirm only the non-substantive view together with the policy of non-inter vention. This seems to be the position implied by Ayn Rand’s claim that ‘the onfy good which men can do to one another and the onfy statement of their proper relationship is Hands On’ (Rand, 1961, p 77, emphasis added). However, it is difficult to alfirm such a policy in isolation, when one is also aware of the results it is likely to produce. As any consequentialist will point

HUMAN NATURE AND THE UTOPIANISM OF THE NEW RIGHT 7

out, doing nothing in certain situations is equivalent to doing something in others. That is, abstaining from action, when one is both capable of intervening and aware of the probable outcomes of both alternatives, is itself a moral act. And the New Right ore aware of what people will probably choose to do if the government abstains from action. For example, they have said that ‘men will expect to specialise in market work, and women will expect to special- ise in household work’:

Can one continue to endorse inaction even if one is aware of its morally undesirable conse- quences? Such an outlook verges on nihilism which, although it may be more consistent, cannot be a credible outlook for the New Right, because it suggests complete indifference to human nature and thus leaves little room for the justification of even a minimal state. The New Right do not favour complete governmental inaction. It is surely the belief that complete anarchism will bring us closer to a Hobbesian state of nature where the average life will be ‘nasty, brutish and short’ which must at least partly motivate their preference for a society in which a government enforces private property rights and contractual agreements, and where the average person can live a longer and more fulfilling life. That is to say, the preference for civilisation over a Hobbesian state of nature indicates a preference for being a civilised man over being a Hobbesian natural man.

Admitting the inadequacy of the unqualified non-substantive view, the libertarian might remain consistent by claiming that his preferred end-state just is the New Right probable end- state; that in it, people will continue to respect each other’s property rights and that this is all that he desires of human nature. But it is not all that most of us desire of human nature. Something like the argument from personal identity seems relevant again. The majority of people atprcsmt consider the characteristics of human nature in the New Right probable end- state to be less desirable than their own characteristics. Why, then, should we desire to be worse people, whatever else characterizes a society made up of such people? The answer to the argument from personal identity was that the radical wishes to liberate our ‘true’ and existing nature. Yet the preference for civilized man over Hobbesian natural man surely indicates that we can only have good reason for positing such a ‘true’ nature if it is one which we feel to be on balance more virtuous or attractive than our present (‘apparent’) nature, rather than more vicious and repellent.

The relationship between the non-substantive and the end-state views of human nature, then, is such that they combine to form an unrealistic, utopian view of human nature. If the New Right’s view of human nature is not to be described as utopian, it must be described as one of indifference (given that we rule out malevolence), a view which, as well as appearing less attractive to many would-be supporters of the New Right, would suggest fraudulence in terms of their stated ideals of self-reliance and moral responsibility. Whether, however, we should describe the New Right view of human nature as utopian or as fraudulent, we can at least be sure of one conclusion; that governmental inaction should not automatically be associated with opposition to the conscious shaping of human nature and the aim of allowing its free development and continued diversity. Governmental inaction may direct human nature into certain channels more efficiently than do redistributive measures. The latter may appear to increase regulation and to reduce negative freedom. But a diverse and freely developing human nature requires self-determination as well as negative freedom. And a self- determining individual requires a certain minimum of resources in order to exercise his free- dom and to direct his life in the way he wishes; in order, that is to ‘be the way he is’, rather than the way poverty or market efficiency compel him to be.5

Notes

1. 2.

This definition of ‘utopian’ is from the Oxford English Dufionary. The use of this term here is not intended to refer to personal identity in the philosophical sense (the identity of two spatio temporally defined individuals), bur only to the idea of a kindof a person and its identity over time.

a IAN CARTER

3.

4. 5.

F A Hayek, ‘Knowledge, Evolution and Society’ (Adam Smith Institute, 1983), cited, Belsey, 1986,

I Papps, ‘For Love or Money’, Hobart paper no 86 (IEA, London, 1980), cited, Levitas, 1986, p 98. The author would like to thank Graeme Duncan and the editors of Politics for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

pp 181-2.

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