EPSTEAN’S LAW

A FEW DAYS after Mr. Willkie’s nomination I happened to see a published statement from him in which he flatly accused Mr. Roosevelt of promoting the idea of Statism; that is to say, the idea that the individual exists for the State. He said that he himself believed the exact opposite of this; he believed that the State exists for the individual. Mr. Willkie added that this issue—the issue of individualism versus Statism—was the issue on which he intended to make his campaign.

I do not know whether or not Mr. Willkie has carried out this intention or even said anything more about it; but that is my own fault because, what with one thing and another, I have not got around to following the course of the campaign. His statement attracted my attention, however, because it fell in with a line of thought which I was then pursuing in consequence of having read certain recent books. Last spring several authors came out with essays proposing various practical policies, all of which were based on the idea which Mr. Willkie accuses Mr. Roosevelt of promoting. It struck me then that if any of these policies were to be proved workable, it would have to pass three tests; tests which are so simple and commonplace that anybody can apply them, but which, because they are so simple and commonplace, hardly anyone ever thinks of applying, although—when all comes to all—they are the tests by which every general political policy must stand or fall in the long run. Now, if Mr. Willkie means what he said and is elected, he will presumably formulate some sort of general political policy or line of procedure to implement his idea that the State exists for the individual. On the other hand, if Mr. Roosevelt is elected, he will no doubt even more energetically continue the policy implementing his idea that the individual exists for the State. My purpose in writing is to show that all the reader need do to convince himself that either policy is workable or unworkable is to apply to it, if and when it is announced, the three tests I shall now go on to indicate, using some of last spring’s crop of political essays by way of illustration.

I

I might begin with a story. When I was a very young man someone showed me a sheet of manuscript music which was a curiosity in its way. It was written for the cornet. I read it over and saw that it was very good music indeed. The trouble was that no one could play it, because the composer had neglected to put in any rests where the cornetist could take breath. This omission made the whole thing utterly impracticable. It seems to be in the order of nature (at least as far as we at present understand the order of nature) that man cannot push wind in a cornet continuously for any great length of time; he has to stop and refill his lungs every once in a while. This incapacity may be a misfortune for music or it may not; but, in either case, there it is and apparently nothing can be done about it. Therefore what this composer was actually trying to do was to introduce disorder into nature by building his music upon a putative human capacity which does not exist. He made a failure of it; and the point is that a moment’s reflection on the nature of man not only would have shown him that failure was inevitable, but also would have shown him plainly why it was inevitable.

One of the books which came my way last spring was Mr. Max Eastman’s Stalin’s Russia and the Crisis in Socialism. It brought the foregoing story to my mind at once. Mr. Eastman says he was for twenty-five years a Marxian socialist, accepting the Marxian policy for organizing human society according to the formula, From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. On this he remarks the curious fact that it never occurred to Marx to ask himself just what there is in human nature to give him any assurance that society can operate on that principle. Furthermore, Mr. Eastman says, for ninety years Marxian socialists have been assuming that a simple State collectivization of property would lead directly to the establishment of such a society as Marx contemplated. On this Mr. Eastman remarks as an odd fact that during those ninety years “not one Marxian has ever raised the simple question: Is human nature, as it has developed in the struggle for survival, sufficiently self-dependent and sufficiently coöperative—or sufficiently capable of self-dependence and malleable in a coöperative direction—so that a collectivization of property would actually lead to the society of the free and equal, the dying away of State power, the condition of felicity described in the formula, ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs’?”

Well, rather! One would indeed suppose that it might have occurred to somebody to raise this question, especially in view of the fact which Mr. Eastman points out, that the work of Darwin, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and a whole shoal of other investigators into the nature of man and the conditions essential to the maintenance of human society, all took place during those ninety years. Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1847, and Social Statics, Spencer’s great exposition of the fundamentals of social organization, appeared in 1851. Surely at some time within the century it should have occurred to any literate Marxian to ask himself what he has found in the intellectual and moral capacities of mankind to give him any ground whatever for believing that the Marxian formula is practicable. The question is obviously fundamental, for what is the use of getting up a fine attractive prospectus for the organization of society if the realizing of it turns out to be repugnant to the order of nature, and therefore will not work? Marx, as Mr. Eastman shows, was precisely like the composer whose music could not be played because it did not take proper account of the inflexible order of nature.

Mr. Eastman, like all good doctrinaire Marxians, was somewhat taken aback at seeing how quickly, easily, and apparently naturally the Marxian system in Russia slid off into an autocratic régime of outrageous tyranny. He now thinks some modification of the Marxian prospectus is necessary. His proposal is to organize “a new scientific radical party” which “to begin with shall marshal the proletarian class-forces behind some such programme as that which Max Lerner calls ‘democratic collectivism,’ envisaging a society in which ‘private property and private industrial initiative would remain; but the capitalists could make their decisions on policy only within a framework set by planning-boards.’ It would assert, as Lerner does, that a democratic capitalist society can plan, ‘if the majority and its leaders have the courage to take capitalism away from the capitalists, and make its basic decisions socially rational and responsible.’ ”

Just so; but once bitten, twice shy. Once more the obvious question is, what have Mr. Eastman and Mr. Max Lerner discovered in the constitution of human nature, the mental and moral make-up of mankind, to assure them that society can operate to any better purpose on the principle of “democratic collectivism” than on the principle of Marxian collectivism? It may be conceded to Mr. Lerner that “the majority and its leaders” have plenty of courage to take away from anybody anything which is not spiked down. He need have no anxiety about that. But just what is it in human nature which warrants the assumption that when “the majority and its leaders” have taken capitalism away from the capitalists they will make their basic decisions any more “socially rational and responsible” than the capitalists have made theirs?

Again, Mr. Lerner’s system is fundamentally Statist; it contemplates an area of voluntary coöperation only within a ring of State-enforced coöperation. Mr. Eastman accepts it as such. His proposal is (italics mine) that “we must surrender to coöperation and the attending State control as much of our individual freedom as is indispensably necessary to the operation of a complicated wealth-producing machinery.” In his view, however, there must be some sort of guarantee that the measure of State control shall not become excessive. We must proceed, Mr. Eastman says (italics mine), “in search of guarantees against the totalitarianism which now seems inherent in State ownership.” In another place also he postulates “a scheme of distribution for an economy of abundance not involving totalitarianism,” and says that after surrendering so much of our freedom as may be indicated for the success of the scheme “we must guard with eternal vigilance the rest.” All this is unquestionably very fine, very good, but just what is it in the constitution of man which gives Mr. Eastman the idea that anything of the sort is practicable, or that after his democratic society has made the initial surrender it will not continue gravitating steadily towards the Führerprinzip? With his own actual experience of democratic societies in mind, just what does Mr. Eastman find in the physical capacities of man to make him think that his scheme, or Mr. Lerner’s scheme, would not pretty promptly run up into what Mr. J. P. Mayer so well calls “a plebiscitary dictatorship”? Moreover, what does he find to support the notion that this régime of dictatorship would be ipso facto less totalitarian, less oppressive, corrupt, spendthrift and generally vicious, than any other?

On Mr. Eastman’s own showing, it appears to me that this is the first test to which any political proposal should be subjected. If it had been applied to Mr. Roosevelt’s general policy in the first instance we might have been spared considerable misfortune. If Mr. Lerner’s interesting variant of Statism passes this test, or Mr. Eastman’s, well and good; if not, they are out of discussion. Mr. H. G. Wells has drawn up a whole imposing Magna Carta as a basis for the organization of a peaceful and prosperous world-society; Mr. John Chamberlain advocates what he calls with unconscious humor “a mixed economy”; while others among their co-Statists offer various suggestions in less detail. All these should be put to the same preliminary test—can the moral and intellectual capacities of mankind stand the strain of supporting them when put in practice? Can they, as we say, “take it”? If so, then let us consider them; if not, then not. Let us freely admit that Marx and all his Statist progeny have composed superb good music, wonderfully attractive and fascinating when you read the score, but if it can’t be played, and if ordinary common sense is all one needs to see clearly why it can’t be played, then what is the use of saying any more about it?

II

So much, then, for the first test of this or that politico-economic general policy: Is there anything in the observable order of nature which can be counted on to give it active support? Now for the second test: Is there anything in that order which can be counted on as actively against it? And here again I should like to illustrate what I have to say by recounting a bit of personal experience.

For a long time I have held to a politico-economic doctrine which has been before the public for many years. As it appears on paper it is so nearly perfect that nothing worth listening to has ever been said against it, or can be said. It is simple as the Golden Rule, and as far above criticism. It is as competent as the legislation of the legendary king Pausole who had only two laws on his statute-book, the first being “Hurt no man,” and the second, “Then do as you please.” If I were legislating for a society of just men made perfect, I should set up my doctrine at once as a practical scheme, exactly as it stands. Things being as they are, however, I do not advocate it or expound it or try to convert anyone to it. When acquaintances occasionally ask me about it I refer them to certain books, and let it go at that. This rather lackadaisical attitude is due to the fact that long ago I applied to it the two tests which I am now expounding, and got a negative result. I could find no principle in human nature favorable to my scheme, and I did find one that is dead against it. This principle is the one set forth in the fundamental law of economics, that man tends always to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible exertion.

Man-at-large appears to follow this principle in common with the rest of the animal world, and to accept its guidance as implicitly as any cow or cat in the land. In fact, my philosophical mentor Edward Epstean puts it down, I think quite correctly, as the second law of nature, rating self-preservation as the first; so for convenience we may call it Epstean’s law, even though Mr. Epstean was not the first to formulate it. Like the first law, it admits of occasional short-time exceptions. Considerations such as ambition, prudence, fear, pride, decorum, sometimes come in on occasion to make man act against this principle, but he always tends to act in accordance with it; and experience abundantly shows that he does so act with a regularity and persistence which are far more than enough to make hay of my politico-economic doctrine. My doctrine simply will not work, and as long as Epstean’s law remains in force it can never work. Let us see how this is so.

There are two means and only two whereby man can satisfy his needs and desires. He can do it by work; or he can do it by appropriating the product of other people’s work without compensation. The second means obviously involves less exertion than the first; therefore man, acting under the operation of Epstean’s law, always tends to employ it. When he can employ it legally, moreover, common observation attests that he invariably does employ it. The legality of his action, of course, rests with the State; it is the State which gives him the privilege of employing this means without risk of being had up for it and put in jail. A profitable land-grant, for example, conferred by the State, has often legally enabled persons to satisfy their needs and desires with no exertion whatever. A tariff levied by the State enabled the late Andrew Carnegie and his associates legally to appropriate without compensation a vast deal of wealth produced by other people’s work, and thereby to satisfy their own needs and desires most prodigally with little or no exertion. Hence, in view of the profitable possibilities resident in State action, man is always under the heavy pressure of Epstean’s law to induce the State to take action in his behalf.

The State, however, must be administered, and the only administrators available are folks, people, human beings; and human beings in administrative positions are quite as amenable to the operation of Epstean’s law as they are elsewhere; if not, as a rule, more so. It requires far less exertion, obviously, to sit in the House or the Senate or on some administrative commission and direct the distribution of other people’s wealth to one’s own advantage, than it requires, say, to cultivate corn in Illinois or whack steers in Texas, and thereby produce wealth for oneself. Hence, as long as the State stands as a potential distributor of economic advantage, Epstean’s law works powerfully and harmoniously in and out between those who seek that advantage and those who can confer it. The consequence is that on the one hand the State tends progressively to multiply its functions as an auctioneer, while on the other hand the administrative field tends to become a sheer stamping-ground of professional adventurers. It is observable also that the wider this field is opened, as in the self-styled “democratic countries,” the more freely and largely do these tendencies come into play. For example, I believe that never in the world was there so stupendous a demonstration of the force of Epstean’s law as is furnished by the growth of Washington’s population in the last eight years.

All this stands to reason as natural and inevitable. The more functions the State takes on, the further its range of control is extended—in short, the closer its approach to a totalitarian character—the more of other people’s wealth becomes available for its administrators to appropriate and dispose of as they see fit; and consequently the larger will be the number of their political adherents and dependents. Hence the greater will be the attraction for cynical adventurers with a gift for making the most of these circumstances; hence also the progressive exclusion of any but cynical adventurers from the field of politics—and those, moreover, of a progressively lower and lower order. The most casual glance at political history in any period since the great irruption of soi-disant democracy first broke upon the western world is enough to show that this is so; and also to show that the untoward consequences which we are now witnessing have come about in strict conformity with the incidence of Epstean’s law.

The faculty of instinctively applying the same order of disinterested and objective criticism to one’s own philosophical system that one applies to a competing system is extremely rare. This faculty is one of the marks which distinguish a critic of the very first order; it distinguishes an Erasmus or a Rabelais from a Calvin or a Luther. A Unitarian theologian, for instance, may be, and usually is, a first-rate critic of Trinitarian theology, but a very lame critic of his own theology. Similarly Mr. Wells, Mr. Eastman, Mr. Lerner, and our philosophers of the New Deal, all make a fair fist at criticizing what they call the capitalist system, but do not seem aware that the same order of criticism which they apply to it is also applicable to their own several variants of State collectivism. As we have seen, When Mr. Eastman criticizes doctrinaire Marxism he seems vaguely aware of the existence of Epstean’s law, for he speaks of “the totalitarianism which now seems inherent in State ownership,” but when he broaches Mr. Lerner’s variant of State collectivism as a substitute doctrine, he seems never to have heard of it.

So when he and those who are like-minded come forward with proposals for surrendering some of our individual freedom “to coöperation and the attending State control,” the judicious reader will call a halt until this phrase can be mulled over and cleared a little, Any degree of economic control carries with it a corresponding power to distribute economic advantage; in fact, it is that power. A power of control which does not carry this power of distribution is unthinkable; any talk of it is simply a contradiction in terms. Clearly, then, “the attending State control” at once opens the way for Epstean’s law to become operative. Hence Mr. Eastman should be asked how he would prevent its operation from going on indefinitely to the confiscation of further liberties. He might reply that “we must guard with eternal vigilance” the unsurrendered remainder, but quis custodiet custodes? The reader will remind Mr. Eastman that all of us alike—both the guardians and those, if any, who guard the guardians—all tend to satisfy our needs and desires with the least possible exertion; and therefore the assumption that this tendency would not pretty promptly prevail over any purely hortatory incitement to vigilance seems extremely shaky. Again, if Mr. Eastman produces the scheme which he appears to think producible, “a scheme of distribution for an economy of abundance not involving totalitarianism,” the judicious reader will ask just what derailing device, if any, Mr. Eastman has in mind which can be counted on to switch off the operation of Epstean’s law at any given point short of totalitarianism.

III

The tests which I have been discussing hang on the moral and intellectual capacities of mankind. The third test hangs on mankind’s affectional capacities. A full discussion of these matters would probably be a rather delicate business, so I shall say only enough about them to make my point clear. It seems to be in the order of nature that man’s affectional interests have but a short radius of action. They do not normally reach much beyond one’s immediate family or a small entourage of intimates, if indeed so far. Philanthropy (using the word in its strict etymological sense) usually contemplates an abstraction; possibly even Abou ben Adhem, if he had disinterestedly overhauled his own affectional capacities and taken their exact measure, might have found it so.

This disability, if it be one, cannot safely be presumed upon in constructing a politico-economic policy. The danger is a double one. If a policy is designed to stretch man’s affectional capacities much farther than they will normally go, it sets up a damaging revulsion, and in the end breaks down. More than this, it powerfully reënforces the operation of Epstean’s law in bringing about odious political abuses, all the more odious because they are brought about under the ægis of enlightened philanthropy.

Summing up now, whatever policies or practical proposals may be made by Mr. Willkie or Mr. Roosevelt, or indeed by anyone, the judicious reader will do well to apply to them the three tests which I have set forth. First, is anything discoverable in the moral and intellectual capacities of mankind which will support them? Second, do they run aground on Epstean’s law? Third, do they tend to stretch the affectional capacities of mankind beyond the limit which the order of nature appears to have put upon them? Many social philosophers have tried to construct systems which would jump these three hurdles, and have failed; chiefly because, as Mr. Eastman shows, they did not know the hurdles were there. Probably the thing could be done—I think it might be—but whether it can be done now and here is another question, things being as they are. At all events it is useful to be aware that, as long as our socio-political architects do not know what the hurdles are and where they are, it will not be done.