The Error Of Fascists And Libertarians

Fascists and libertarians both make the same error, from opposite directions. They believe that there is a qualitative difference between people who are a part of the state and people who are not a part of the state. Fascists think that people inside the state are better than people outside the state; the libertarians think the opposite. In fact I see no reason why either one would be better than the other.

I have lived for extended periods of time in both the former Soviet Union and in United States. In both places I heard horror stories. The difference was that while in the Soviet Union the worst perpetrator was the government, in America they were private. I mean someone having every bone in his body broken when he was a child, and another person having his brother killed by his father and being anally raped by his father since he was three. I mean the mafia killing an inventor and corrupting every lawyer that his daughter attempted to hire. I mean a man breaking a woman's skull so badly that she needed 40 stitches and walking away with the child.

Whenever a human phenomenon is deified, it is given powers that it does not deserve. As such it uses these powers for wrong things. If state is deified, then it becomes an organ of brutality and oppression. If family, or community, or the public or the society, is deified, then it becomes an organ of wrongdoing as well. Once again, I see no reason to see one as better or worse than the other.

I once had the inspiration that the English civilization and the American society work in opposite directions. The English impose a solution from the top; the Americans build up through spontaneous activity. This can be visualized as a downward-pointing triangle on the part of the English and an upward-pointing triangle on the part of the Americans. When the two triangles intersect we get David's Star: What appears to be the divinely ordained solution.

I work with two concepts: Checks-and-balances and synthesis. Both have been used to create superpowers. However neither is complete in itself. Checks-and-balances by itself leads to gridlock, and synthesis by itself leads to totalitarianism. What we need is a combination of the two. At the bottom level, each party protects its rightful prerogatives and in so doing checks the other's capacity for wrongdoing. And at the top they work together to accomplish what neither can accomplish by itself.

Both the state and not-the-state are capable of various forms of wrongdoing. They are also both capable of doing things that are right. When dealing with entities that are capable of both right and wrong, the correct solution is checking their wrongdoing and supporting them in what they do that is right. This, once again, is the case both for people inside the state and people outside the state.

The state, when left to its own devices, can do terrible things. So can the general public. But both are also capable of doing right. So the solution, once again, is David's Star. Synthesis within the framework of check-and-balance. Allow each triangle to check the other's capacity for wrongdoing and work together to accomplish what neither can by itself.

In places where this is done, we see any number of positive outcomes. We see this for example in Israel, and the place is doing well enough. We also see this in some Asian countries and some European countries. The two forces check and balance each other, and then they work together to achieve what neither can achieve by itself. The entities that have the capacity for oppression are checked by people's affirmation of their legitimate interests such as life and liberty. The entities that want to eat up all the resources are checked by people who care about the future.

Both fascists and libertarians are in error. There is no reason to think that people in the state would be better or worse than people outside the state. I propose the model of synthesis within the framework of check-and-balance, allowing people in both places to check each other's capacity for wrongdoing and work together to achieve positive results.