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Liberty
and
Community
Voices From Afar
by Christian Michel
Let me ask you a question: How many are we in this room? A headcount would provide a ready answer. We could refine this by breaking the
total into sub-groups: Males and females; individuals either side of 1 metre 69, or of 50 years of age. Politicians would want a breakdown by nationality; tax inspectors
and marketing executives by income brackets and spending patterns. This would all provide excellent material for statisticians. But would these figures answer my question:
How many are we in this room? I am summoning up here all sorts of entities, characters from our past, little demons and maybe bigger ones, muses and angels, who surround
us, inspire us, whisper answers in our ear, and accompany us wherever we go, to this conference and into this room.
Of course, as we are gathered together to attend an ISIL Conference, we know our demons come from the same lower order of libertarian
philosophy. Nevertheless, there are atheists and believers among us, vegetarians and flesh eaters, upholders of American values and rebellious French nationalists.
These beliefs are not merely opinions that determine our judgment, but convictions with their origins in much deeper realms than our rational selves. They are our
"owners" as much as we possess them, marking not only who we are, but whose we are. To quote from authors above libertarian suspicion, Ayn Rand identifies the
source of pre-rational beliefs in our "sense of life", Thomas Sowell in a "vision". Let's term "pre-cognitive" these acts over which we, rational humans, have little
control.
THE DEFEAT OF REASON
A long-standing tradition that spans from Plato, to the Enlightenment, to Marxism, claims that if we could only rid ourselves of our
prejudices and petty concerns, then the scales would fall from our eyes. We would all argue rationally; we would reach agreement on every issue, based on verifiable
information and logical outcomes. Plato's Cave would empty out. Kant based his project for a perpetual peace on this wonderful capacity of human beings to set aside
mere beliefs and to discover reality through the exercise of reason. This still dictates the philosophy of the United Nations. A few wicked individuals who refuse to
understand reason lead their peoples to savage aggressions. Demons have blinded them. Were they only to listen to reason, then they would comprehend the errors of their
ways – for there is only one reason, one nature, one way to apprehend the world and to organise a political society.
The bad news is that it doesn't work like this. The world is not only complex, it is tragic. The essence of tragedy is when you have no
compelling reason to act one way as opposed to another – and yet you have to decide. There are very powerful arguments on both sides of many issues:
defence, foreign policy, civil and military nuclear power, immigration, intellectual property, abortion, the environment, the Middle-East, democracy, criminal law and
punishment, to name but a few. Descartes was wrong. There is indeed a cunning demon that deceives our perception. Reality is filtered and tainted with our past experiences,
knowledge and prejudices, and thank goodness for that! We could not survive without applying such orientation points onto the world. It is what we call a
culture.
No human being exists without it. We cannot even conceive of creatures from another world without imbuing them with our own cultural
attributes. The angels in Wim Wenders' wonderful film, Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) are distinctly German – what else? – angst-ridden,
melancholic, dour and humourless.
Our belonging to a cultural community does not restrict our freedom. It sets the frame within which we can exercise our capacity to be
free. If I order you "Choose!" you will stare at me bewildered and ask "Between what?" To leave the room or stay? Tea or coffee? In order to choose anything, there
must be a range of options, a menu to choose from. This menu may be more or less extended or varied or tempting, but the choice it offers must be circumscribed for freedom to be exercised.
THE HABSBURG EMPIRE
Prague is an appropriate location to discuss communities. The city was one of the major cultural centres of a multiethnic, multicultural
Empire, comprising 11 national groups and 6 Christian religions, plus Judaism and Islam, and covering the largest area in Europe after Russia before its demise in 1918.
Its two most celebrated writers were born in Prague the same month of the same year 1883: Franz Kafka wrote in German; Jaroslav Hasek in Czech. It didn't matter. Any of
their compatriots with a minimum of education would read both languages equally well, and many were fluent in French and English too.
One can only deeply regret that Emperor Franz-Joseph, who had instituted the dual monarchy, Austria and Hungary, could not complete his
project of a triple monarchy, with a coronation in Prague. As it was, the Empire was already established as a complex multi-ethnic structure.
Each nationality elected its own parliament, or Diet; Vienna was the seat of the Private Council of Bohemia and of the
Hungarian Supreme Commission, of the Chancery of Galicia, of Transylvania, of the Italian Piedmont, and still in the 19th century, these bureaucracies corresponded
among themselves in Latin, as their only common language.
Ethnicity was not a consideration in the distribution of wealth, power and prestige. Of the 18,290 banks registered in the Empire in
1900, only two were not owned by Jews. Even nationality did not count. The most celebrated Austrian Prime Minister, Prince Metternich, was German, not Austrian. The
great Czech families, the Lobkowicz, Kinsky, Liechtenstein, Schwarzenberg, whose palaces still adorn this city, the great Hungarian families of Esterhazy, Batthiany,
Rakoczi, ranked equally with the purest and oldest Austrian nobility. Actually in its last decades, one could argue the Habsburg Empire was dominated by Hungarians, who
held most key positions in government and civil administration.
Multiculturalism, of course, was not unique to Austro-Hungary. The regime is characteristic of European empires, from Rome, to
Charlemagne, to Napoleon, and even to the Ottoman Empire, this formidable enemy of Europe that was ruled paradoxically by Europeans.
I gave a talk similar to this one in Turkey a few weeks ago. It offered me the opportunity to learn more about the Ottoman Empire, and
what lessons this Islamic power, the mightiest that ever was, can teach us today about the coexistence of ethnic and religious communities. We tend to forget that a
multi-ethnic, but mostly European, political and cultural elite was the linchpin of the Ottoman system after 1453. Ministers and governors were more likely to
be Croatians, Armenians, Jews, and Greeks, than Turks. After the Tanzimat, the deep reforms that took place in the mid 19th Century, they didn't even have to
convert to Islam to rule the country. Constantinople, Smyrna, and all major Ottoman cities were home to large communities of British, Americans, Germans, French,
Greeks, Jews, Armenians and all varieties of Circassians, practicing their own religion, or no religion at all, trading together, sending their children to the same
multilingual schools, and intermarrying.
The Habsburg and Ottoman empires were dismembered after 1920. The multiethnic, religiously tolerant and cosmopolitan world Europe had
enjoyed in the 19th Century was broken into parochial and nationalistic countries.
We should not be surprised. Most of the new countries were republics, and republics need ethnic cleansing.
REPUBLICAN ETHNIC CLEANSING
When a province changed rulers in the days of Empires, its population did not move. Poles were not expelled from their country despite
its three successive partitions by the neighbouring powers in the 18th century. Nor were the Finns and the Balts displaced when they became subjects of the Tsar, or
the Croats, Bulgarians and Greeks under the Sultans. As soon as republics were instituted, however, ethnic homogeneity became the rule. This country, of course, offered
a perfect and distressing example with the fate of the Sudeten.
"Everything is political" is the battle cry of republics – meaning no rights are secure, no laws are incontestable, the most
powerful party, whether in parliament or in the streets, decides for all. In this joust to acquire entitlements, the little demons on our shoulders remain alert. Issues
of race, ethnicity and religion become the criteria for distributive justice that reason cannot provide. It is painful enough to have to pay for the welfare of others,
but nasty prejudices will creep up when the recipients of our forced benefaction are outsiders. Free education, free healthcare, generous pensions and life employment
should be for my people, not ragged immigrants, not miscreants, not the lazy bunch from the South or the East.
It is not just tribalism. It is collective self-preservation. You don't want the risk of legislators, police and judges from another
culture being biased against yours. You don't want your children taught by strangers in another language. A despot will die, his clique may be toppled, but when power
resides in the people and you are not part of the dominant people your only alternative to assimilation or second-class citizenship is secession. Republics require uniformity.
They are not getting it. Their prosperity has attracted to their shores the tired,
the poor, and the huddled masses. Even in the less affluent republics, immigration is jeopardising the regime. After
two murderous centuries of republics and nation-states conflicts, “Empire”, if I dare say, is striking back. It is re-
imposing diversity, heterogeneity and complexity. “Empire” wears new clothes and it is called globalisation.
EMPIRE
At this point, let me introduce Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Characteristically wearing brown shoes at our black-tie party, their
view of Empire is far removed from the pomp of the Hofburg and Topkapi. "Empire, they write, is materialising before our very eyes; […] Along with the global market and
global circuits of production has emerged a global order, a new logic of structure and rule – in short, a new form of sovereignty."
Empire is just a body of rules and procedures, a juridical system always subject to contradictions and adjustments (the regime we
broadly call capitalism). In this regime, there is no locus of power, no citadel to besiege. Empire is in the authors' jargon "a decentred and deteritorialising
apparatus of rules that progressively incorporates the entire global realm within its expanding frontiers."
A few actors stand out, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank and a host of multinational corporations, the usual suspects, but no single
institution, country or elite is at the command post of Empire. Not even the United States. Against most of the Left, Hardt and Negri reject the notion that Empire is
a process controlled by America in its own interest. "The US police, the authors insist, acts not in imperialist interest but in imperial interest". Military intervention
is not furthering American national interests, but occurs instead unwittingly in the interest of Empire.
Don't let these internationalist assurances fool you. Hardt and Negri are the enemy. Negri after all is a convicted terrorist
in Italy, sentenced to 17 years in jail. Hardt is an old-fashioned leftie, who preaches such hippy chestnuts as "One has to expand the concept of love beyond the
limits of the couple." Their eponymous book, Empire, published in 2000, was hailed by the New York Times as "nothing less than a re-writing of the
Communist Manifesto". It was praised by much of the intellectual establishment from Berkeley to the Sorbonne. For such a verbose and poorly written book, its
commercial success is astonishing: 2 million paperback copies sold and translation into 20 languages. The point I want to make is this: the new bible of the Left is a
hymn to globalisation. "The decline of the nation-state is […] a structural and irreversible process. […] the nation carries with it a whole series of repressive
structures and ideologies, and any strategy that relies on it should be rejected on that basis."
MULTITUDE
Confronting Empire, we find Multitude. The concept defines a collection of single individuals that goes beyond the old notions of
'people' and of 'working class'. Multitude is not a subject, no more than Empire is.
It constitutes rather an assemblage of practices, of forms of production, of relationships and networks which are not integrated into
any hierarchy or ordered unit. Empire and Multitude are the two perfectly matched products of globalisation, two sides of the same coin: On one side, the commercial
and technological unification of the world; on the other, the linking of a plurality of cultures and peoples into a single network. But – and this is the crux
– Multitude is simply brought together, it is merely interconnected, it is not unified by some great purpose or set of values. As elements of Multitude, we do not
develop any allegiance, any political affiliation, nor any lasting moral commitment. No people, in the sense of demos, will ever emerge from Multitude. It will
never form a community.
The spineless left-liberal society we live in today is a good illustration of Multitude. It has failed in all its undertakings:
providing education to all, teaching social skills, helping the poor, keeping our streets safe, ... Not only it has wasted the unprecedented resources committed to this
task, but all this spending has most probably been counterproductive. Reacting to this failure in the 1980s, a school of thinkers called "communitarians", with Alasdair
McIntyre, Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer and Michael Sandel as its leading lights, put the blame down to technocratic liberalism with its neutralist and almost
relativist ambition, characteristic of Multitude. Virtue, they hold, cannot be replaced by expertise. Without the acquisition of virtues, nothing prevents individuals
from adopting anti-social behaviours, except the fear of being caught. This is the consequence libertarians and laissez-faire conservatives must fear, for once virtues
are eroded, social and civic order must rest by default on government controls and police. Societies require moral foundations to minimize the role of the state. The
amorphous Multitude leaves too much space to Empire.
The panegyric of liberty that Jim Peron launched into yesterday was deeply moving and inspiring, but what do you do with your freedom?
What is it that will give meaning and depth to your free life?
Jaroslav Romantchuk emphasized the accusation of moral vacuum generally levelled at the West. The accusation is justified. The
social-democratic West is materialist, vulgar, self-indulgent, hedonistic; its elite are corrupt, its youth in disarray. I love it as it is, but the reality is the West
has lost the sense of virtue. And there are not many ways to reverse this moral decadence.
COMMUNITY
Virtues are not taught in books, they are exemplified. Young people absorb them from role models. They practice virtue inasmuch as they
see virtue practiced around them. We mocked Hilary Clinton's quoting of an African proverb: "It takes a village to bring up a child", but she could well have a point.
Crime rates are lowest where the sense of community is strongest. All the studies conducted on offenders around the world show the influence of peers in developing, or
not developing, anti-social behaviour.
"I have to do what my mates do" and "What will everyone else think of me?" are more important motivations than adherence to legal
statutes.
The observation doesn't answer the question, though, of how to restore communities in a world of Multitude?
Back at the time of Empire's initial publication, the communitarians' ideal was of course the Greek City – with women
and without slaves – where, on the agora, enlightened citizens would discuss the collective affairs of the day. This romantic vision, à la Tönnies'
Gemeinshaft, is not happening. Post 9/11, the strongest communities are not communities of place, but communities of memories, some tiny, some
numbering tens of millions and spanning continents. They draw their strength from a common past, real or imagined. The bond between individuals is the acknowledgment
of great ancestors, of their deeds, of their sufferings, and often, as Freud reminds us in Totem and Taboo, of their crimes.
My ancestors were the Gauls, I was told; Joan of Arc is family, as is Napoleon, our enfant terrible, Victor Hugo, De Gaulle,
and so many others in our dysfunctional family who used to live in Versailles and can now only afford the banlieues.
You all have a similar glorious or tragic legacy to assume. Throw in religion or atheism and you get the most harassing demons goading
us on in political life. These communities of memories are the only communities left in a globalised world and their impact on our lives is irrefutable. We conjure them
up in cultural events and days of remembrance, and even when we celebrate privately, we are aware that all who share the same beliefs and memories across the world are
performing the same rite at that moment. Heinrich Heine remarked that the Bible is a portable country. All countries today are reduced to books, with the most creative
adding films and music. In a globalised world, countries have become narratives.
Maybe what we see appearing in front of us is the mythical Northwest Passage that libertarians have been seeking for so long, the
channel that will take us from the distressing here to the radiant there. Our problem has long been to ground an abstract juridical libertarian
philosophy in concrete life. The famous quip about why libertarians don't get dates – "because they are unable to relate to emotions" – can now be disproved.
What social structure arouses stronger feelings than community? Humanity divided for so long into states and slaves is structuring itself into Empire and Communities.
A PRECEDENT OF POLYCENTRIC
LEGAL SYSTEMS
Let me return to the Ottoman Empire. It offers us a glimpse into our possible future. After they conquered Byzantium, the Sultans
realised the need to re-establish the trade connections that existed between their Christian predecessors and the West. Using sound business judgment, they created what
we would call today polycentric legal systems. In 1539, at the height of his power, Suleiman the Magnificent signed a treaty with the French King Francis the
First. Under the terms of the treaty, all French subjects living and trading in the Ottoman Empire were placed outside the Sultan's jurisdiction. Very soon,
the Venetians, the English, the Dutch, and other nations signed similar treaties. Not only could the foreign residents practice their religion and lifestyle as they
wished, with wine, pork and all that good stuff, but they were exempted from Ottoman taxes and in case of civil or criminal action, they would only be judged by their
own courts. Foreigners were answerable to their own consul. The Sultan acted as a kind of Supreme Court; he was called upon only if a conflict between a national and
a foreigner could not be resolved by the representatives of each community.
Furthermore, any subject of the Ottoman Empire employed by a foreigner was granted the same exemptions. Throughout the centuries, Turks
by the tens of thousands sought some kind of function under the authority of a foreign consul to avoid the heavy hand of the Ottoman bureaucracy. Other communities too
were granted special status, not just foreigners. The Ottoman Greeks were placed under the sole authority of their Patriarchate, so were the Armenians. I am not
representing the Ottoman Empire was a libertarian paradise. Even after the Tanzimat, there were occasional massacres, blatant discriminations and general low
regard for human life. "It can't be helped, the Turks remarked nonchalantly after they beheaded the wrong man" is an observation Kipling is not alone to have made. But
the point I wish to emphasize is this: isn't it fascinating that for all its failings, this relatively open Ottoman society was a Middle-Eastern one, an Islamic one,
and not far-off in some immemorial past, but existing in the 20th century, an experiment in multicultural toleration that living witnesses can still recall?
The strength of communities is their capacity for mobilisation. This is what the Austro-Hungarian Empire could not generate. Loyalty to
the Habsburg dynasty was enough to get communities to coexist and trade peacefully, not enough to die for one another, as war commands. In a community, on the other
hand, calls for effort and sacrifices are met. Values are shared. Enthusiasm, a word which etymologically means "having God in oneself", infuses each member with a deep
sense of responsibility for the collective.
Community authorities are legitimized by a general conversation no one is excluded from, underpinned by the same cultural references,
the same values and the same memories, leading to decisions by genuine consensus. Fairness and non discrimination prevail in the police and justice; those who exercise
these functions are full members of the community themselves. No fierce competition to control the institutions is necessary: it is easier for dissidents to form their
own independent community.
Community survival is predicated on the member’s dedication, from a duty to deepen one's personal knowledge of the community's language,
culture and traditions and transmitting this heritage to younger generations to physical defence against outside aggressions. The missions that nation-states are so
woefully failing to complete today could be taken over much more successfully by these more enthusiastic collectives: education; care for the sick, elderly and
vulnerable; police and justice. If it takes a village to bring up a child, let the village do it. Not only dealing with convicted offenders, but the very prevention of
crime is best achieved where a strong sense of community exists. The only common characteristics of countries like Japan, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Iceland and Equatorial
Guinea is their cohesiveness and their consequent low crime rate.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH KEEPING
ONE'S PROMISES?
The thought that modern states could devolve responsibility for education, social security, police and justice to dozens of big and
small communities seems irresponsible, if not abhorrent. The great unsaid of communitarianism is Islam. Life in some kind of self-administered Rousseauist village or
neighbourhood sounds quite appealing, I suppose, to Western intelligentsia, but the inclusion of bearded fanatics is beyond the pale. How could anyone be subjected to
the Shariah in the land, for instance, where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed?
Given the present world, some Islamic community in France, if let loose, will certainly implement the Shariah. What is so terribly
wrong with that? When a Muslim has manifested his attachment to his fundamentalist community, when he has been seen at its mosque every Friday and followed its
teachings, he cannot be said to be ignorant of the sanctions provided for by the Koran. Keeping promises is a virtue libertarians hold in high esteem. They could not
argue, I maintain, if this self-confessed radical Muslim is found guilty of some theft, and after due process receives the punishment he has called for himself. Having
one's hand chopped off is a gruesome perspective. But others lose life and limbs mountain-climbing, or car-racing, or fire-fighting, and there is an added dimension to
these dangerous activities, whether they are carried for leisure or professionally: however safety-conscious one may be, an accident cannot be ruled out, whereas it is
perfectly possible for any individual to refrain from ever committing any of the Common Law crimes punishable under Shariah.
Judicial autonomy would be granted of course to Reconstructionist Christians. After many years, I can't get over the fact that the same
Gary North who writes these brilliant papers on free market economics is a fervent supporter of stoning blasphemers and adulterous women. Why stoning, actually?
"The implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost" explains our libertarian economist; "executions are community projects – not with
spectators who passively watch a professional executioner perform his duty, but rather with actual participants."
Allowing Talibans of all persuasions to mete out justice is probably more a danger for their own community than for our western
sensibilities. Communities sharing the same land, cohabiting in the same cities, would be confronting their different lifestyles every day.
And exactly like imagined socialism did not withstand the shock of actually implemented socialism, it is not sure
that when Muslims, for instance, can no longer pretext oppression and discrimination, Shariah will appeal to more than a small group of zealots. One always comes to
an arrangement with God.
EDUCATING BY EXAMPLE
Witnessing how others live and having personal contact with them, is sure to push any community to question its own practices.
Political fragmentation in medieval Europe achieved just that, it fostered scepticism and innovation. "Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other side",
noted a disillusioned Blaise Pascal.
Being embedded in a community does not mean one is incapable of applying critical questioning to this tradition. Indeed it is exactly
what McIntyre, Walzer and the other communitarians are doing. Whilst all have been brought up in an open liberal environment, they are now arguing against it and for
communities.
In other words, the constant contact between communities accelerates the Darwinian process of selecting efficient social behaviours
that Louis James was referring to yesterday. We know – don't we – that the values of openness, scientific enquiry, and individual responsibility, the
libertarian values, will always supersede obscurantism.
The Ottoman Empire again illustrates the point. The Capitulations triggered the de-Islamisation of economic life in the Middle-East.
The region became familiarised with western business and legal procedures, such as limited liability corporations, insurance and letters of credit that made Muslims
recognise the benefits of institutions developed outside the realm of Islamic Law.
These corrosive outside influences, on the other hand, place communities at risk of dissolving into amorphous Multitude. To fight
entropy, the most vibrant, enthusiastic communities are naturally repressive of non-conformists. "Families, I loathe you" exclaimed André Gide, whose
homosexuality didn't quite fit in. We could apply to communities Stuart Mill's opinion about democracies: good for the growth of ordinary men, and not so good for that
of extraordinary men. This is the flip side of being taken care of; it is also being made to obey.
And here we reach the divide between libertarian philosophy steeped in individualism and the collectivism of many communities. In our
tradition, since the Gospels, we know "the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath". Rootedness in communities is not superior and ontologically prior to the
individual. Yet, in the madder sects, apostasy is punishable by death. But again, when a different and more appealing lifestyle is literally across the street, you can
count on individuals to defect and to put pressure on their leaders to allow defection. Dissidence is a right that cannot be compromised.
It won't be easy. When borders delineated territories, they made it difficult for dissenters to escape, but offered protection once
they were on the other side. Interspersed communities are easier to leave, but fugitives are also easier to find, to harass and eventually to assault.
GOOD-BYE, DEMOCRACY!
The function of Empire with its multinational institutions will be to mediate these conflicts between individuals and communities, and
between communities themselves. This is where the real Revolution is needed, in the original sense of turning things around. The legitimacy of Empire's institutions can
only be underpinned if they are not democratic. Their sovereignty cannot reside in the people. How could it, when there are more than one people?
Given the slightest chance to get control of these, an ethnic or religious group would not hesitate to use them for its benefit. It is the independence from democratic
interference that guarantees the functioning of such diverse transnational and transcultural institutions as the IMF, World Bank, WTO, European Central Bank,
International Criminal Courts, and so on.
States lost their legitimacy when their expanding functions placed them in constant situations of conflicts of interest. Should they
protect the environment or jobs in polluting industries? More undemocratic institutions, focusing on singles issues, free from the manipulations of states and the rival
claims of ethnic groups, and more competition between these institutions as a guarantee of their good governance, is the way to build up Empire.
Empire is not interested in forced assimilation and has seldom been. And why should it want to exterminate demons? Let reason and
irrationality coexist. Respecting property rights is sufficient. The legitimacy of Empire would not be recognised if it went beyond withholding these few values we
humans all share and which can be conflated into the juridical notion of individual property. Empire will have to start from the convictions, prejudices and irrational
beliefs of various communities and work to achieve the golden rule of civilised life, to agree to disagree.
I tried it here. I used an iconic book of the Left, the institutions of the old aristocratic Habsburg monarchy and those of an Islamic
one, weaving them into a common narrative to defend a libertarian view of society. I leave it to your little demons to assess whether I have been successful.
Thank you.
Christian Michel (Switzerland/England) is Director of both the ISIL and Libertarian International Boards of Directors.
In June of 2000 he sold a large trust and corporate service company, with 12 offices throughout Europe, and moved from Switzerland to London, England. He is author of
La Liberté, published by the Institut Economique de Paris (1986). The book was translated into Romanian by Valentina Nicolae and published in Romania.
Christian's website, www.liberalia.com has become a prime source of documentation in French and English on
libertarian issues for students and scholars.
This speech was delivered at the 2005 International Society for Individual Liberty's Freedom
Summit in Prague, Czech Republic – July 7-11, 2006.
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