It is the chief characteristic of libertarian societies that such social exchange and association (and culture generally) is totally free from State control and regimentation, except for the universal subjection to civil and criminal law.
In totalitarian societies, on the other hand, the State lays down the lines of thought to be accepted as a dogma in all professions. The case of Lisenko is relevant in this context. As a biologist, he had to defend the State doctrine of the transmission of acquired characters from parent to offspring without respect for his own personal opinion based on findings by his own research.
Even in art, the State in Russia (and her satellites) lays down the overall policy to be embodied by the artists in their creations—even in music, opera, drama, poetry, literature. The test laid down is Partism; that is, the doctrine that the work should, in its overall effect on the reader or listener or spectator, have the effect of strengthening the Socialist sentiment. It should make them more resolved to go forth and put more will and energy into their work in the building of socialism! It should not raise doubts about Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism or Khrushchevism in the Soviet people.
The doctrine of State authority in the arts and sciences and philosophies and even in history and anthropology resembles the dogmatic theology of the Roman Catholic Church which is laid down only by the authorised clergy and should be believed in on pain of punishment even unto death:—Witness the claims of the dread institution of the Inquisition in the Catholic Church, which is said to have got thirty thousand heretics burnt at the stake in the days of its power! The purges of Stalin are similar, though more extensive in numbers.
In recent years, we have had the example of the literary man Dr. Pasternak, whose work was disapproved by the Kremlin and who was prevented from accepting the Nobel Prize award from abroad. Even the friends who used to help him in his work were persecuted after his death.
In the libertarian pattern of society, cultural life in all its spheres—literature, the other arts, sciences, technologies, history, education etc. will be totally free from State interference both in their internal administration such as the appointments of experts and their housing of deserving personnel as well as in the ideas they accept from time to time as the truth in their specialties.
They will be free to follow truth entirely on the guidance of their own experience and investigation, experiment, hypothesis and verification. Every accepted idea will be held subject to continual verification by others and so long as it satisfies their criteria of truth and verification.
Works of art will be appreciated solely on the grounds of their appeal to qualified persons– as in the music and art. Fashions may change but change will follow the free impulse of the devotees of the vocation or speciality. State ideology will not influence their ideas and appreciations.
Similarly in economic life. The libertarian society will not seek to pour the entire economic activities of the people into any strait-jacket of State Planned system of targets hemmed in by State-determined regulations of trade quotas, of licences and tariffs in import and export except to the extent necessary for revenue and probably for short periods for protecting nascent industries. Even then the degree of protective tariffs will not shut our foreign goods altogether but will make them somewhat costlier so that the citizens may encourage swadeshi manufactures without too great a loss.
In socialism, there will be no private industry and commerce at all. We in India are moving in that direction, our mixed economy being in the nature of Lenin’s New Economic Policy—a temporary make shift. All investment will be made by planning authorities without any say in the matter being granted to the consumer. In the libertarian society, on the other hand, all investment will be made by private individuals in industrial plants established by industrialists. They will choose industries likely, on the strength of the market for the goods to be manufactured and of the efficiency likely to be attained by the Directors of the enterprise. There will be scope for the intelligence, knowledge and experience of the investor in putting his savings into industry. The consumer thus determines the lines of production in a free society. In socialism, he loses this sovereignty and has to buy whatever is put on the market by the State at prices determined by officials. He cannot plan his own economic life, his savings and his provision for the future.
Even banking will be run by the State in a socialist countries with the result that interest rates are fixed by the State and will not attract voluntary deposits. Socialist dictatorships have this disconcerting habit of repudiating debt obligations. Khrushchev declared two years ago that the Government Loans that had matured after twenty years would not be paid; he postponed payment to an indefinite future! Even the accumulated interest was not paid!
Moreover, since all income earners in Soviet Russia and other communist countries are government employees, the State collects forced Loans from them whenever necessary, deducting them from their salaries! In a dictatorship, grumbling against such levies is dangerous and will be visited with dire punishment.
Moreover, the earnings of everybody in socialist States depend on their worth as assessed by their official superiors who watch their work day-in; day-out in factory or office. Human nature being what it is, it happens too often that it is not the conscientious worker who gets recognised for salary improvements and promotions to better posts, but he who pleases the bosses by servility and extra-work service or compliance! The subservient sycophants have better chances of rising than the honest and efficient worker or officer!
And since all employment depends on the same State everywhere within the country, the dissatisfied worker cannot seek justice elsewhere. If he leaves in search of better or alternative employment, he must carry a card giving clearance from his previous employing unit. No one will be taken anywhere without such clearance cards!
The worker, therefore, has no freedom worth the name in a socialist society. Marx spoke of the industrial workers under capitalist employers as wage slaves. But the workers in Socialist States are more of such wage slaves–(in fact actual serfs tied to work in the units allotted to them by the State)–than workers in free economy and free society. The first sufferers on the emergence of socialism are the workers who will lose their right to strike and deny their labour if dissatisfied with the terms and treatment they get.
Workers in a free society have the further advantage of having the freedom and opportunity of obtaining work from an alternative establishment run by competitors of the unit they are leaving. Workers in Bombay Mills have been known to acquire skills and obtain better paid employment from time to time in the other mills. Without the possibility of such alternative employment, a man cannot enjoy freedom in any real sense. Legal freedom is not enough though it is not to be despised. Variety of alternative opportunities as well as facilities for acquiring higher skills by experience and in continuation, technical schools are essential for the realisation of freedom. This is feasible only in a libertarian or free society with a free economy.
At all levels of capacity and income, whether that of the worker, foreman, mechanic, office clerk, accountant, manager or capitalist director and investor as entrepreneur, what functions as a powerful incentive to work and improvement is the knowledge that every one can get the reward naturally accruing, from the contribution: It may be labour, supervision, office work, accounts, management, risk-taking with regard to investments or skill in salesmanship or knowledge of markets facilitating economical purchase– no one can work to the top of his capacity with zeal unless he has the assurance that social and economic institutions work in such a way as to harmonise skill and reward, effort and compensation, efficiency and monetary returns.
Progress in career should also depend, not on the opinion of superiors entirely but no objective tests of contribution. In free economy, the management have a motive in rewarding merit and efficiency in their own interest– namely that of maximising profits by the marketing of good articles of consumption needed by society.
The priorities of production in a free economy are those determined by the consumer.
A free economy therefore will show a bubbling enthusiasm and self-reliance on the part of all participants in production, marketing and distribution and will elicit the maximum levels and variety of production.
This does not mean that the State has no role to play beyond the maintenance of civil and criminal law in a libertarian pattern of society.
The State has to watch the working of the economy in all spheres and aid it by means of fiscal and monetary policies to keep it at an even keel. It can encourage investments into priority lines of consumer goods by the offer of suitable inducements, such as tax reduction or subsidy. It can pioneer new industries such as steel manufacture in India if private enterprise is unready for it. But it should turn it over to private enterprise as soon as it is ready.
The State should maintain statistical institutions that gather and disseminate accurate information on important matters of commercial and industrial development.
It should also develop communications and transport either directly or indirectly through the encouragement of private bodies.
It should maintain educational and research institutions without monopolising them for itself. It should carry on international negotiations for the facilitation of foreign trade. It should not nationalise industries on a doctrinaire basis. Only the socialisation of the “economic vacuum” is permissible and not the supplantation of citizen enterprise.
This essay is part of a series from the Indian Liberals archive, a project of the Centre for Civil Society. This essay is excerpted from the journal “The Indian Libertarian”, published on 1 January 1962. The original version can be accessed on this link.