Clarence Lee Swartz and Mutualism.

John Ess — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:51:56 GMT

I've reading through some of the Mutualist anarchist since reading some of Kevin Carson's work at the new Center for a Stateless Society (www.c4ss.org) and I have to say that they really do think like Austrians. I was skeptical at first, trust me, but very pleasantly surprised. Especially, this writer who I never hear mentioned much at all: Clarence Lee Swartz, an American anarchist from turn of the century. He writes of the surpreme importance of private property rights, competition, freedom over "being taken care of", initiative, against socialist "leveling", and in general seems to fit right in with Rothbard and Mises in his economic analysis (though shies away from the term capitalism -- in favor of "free markets").

Here's a sample from his work What is Mutualism from 1927

"Will Socialism obtain for the worker the full product of his labor?

In its pure form, if this were possible, it most certainly would abolish private exploitation.

If all the means of production and all-land were in the hands of the government, it is obvious that no individual could exploit another, since the State would be the only employer and exploiter. But there would be two other forms of exploitation by the government. The first would take the form of requisitioning from him who produces more than others. Just as in the "communistic" schools of today, in the public school system, there is the tendency to level down, so would the tendency of the socialist commonwealth be to level down. The leveling of results is the socialist ideal - and practice. It is of no avail for some socialists to claim that this would not be done. It has been done and it will be done again. It is inevitable.

It makes no difference what form of government is cited, it can exist only by taking something away from the people through the use of force. Taxation is a form of robbery or exploitation, even though some service may be given in return.

But, in addition to that, Socialism presents another field for exploitation of the people through government. The main claim for government enterprise is that it operates without a profit. What of that ? It may still be more expensive in operation, even if there is no profit. Private enterprise, conducted for profit, can pay rent for land and interest for money to obtain the capital needed for a concern, pay a profit, and still successfully compete with the State industry, since production without profit by the State is so much more expensive than production with profit by private enterprise. The reason is that the cost of corruption, inefficiency and mismanagement of the State is greater than the profits of private enterprise.

When a single government industry is conducted at a loss, the deficit is made up by taxing private Industry. Under pure Socialism, there would be no private industry to tax, and what would be the result? The experience of Russia speaks in no uncertain language. If it had not been for private enterprise by the peasants, there would have been general bankruptcy and continuous famine. The confiscation of industry, by the Soviets was absolutely ruinous to those industries."

This work is definitely worth a read. He reminds me a lot of Lysander Spooner's work, which is also invaluable. Both can be incorrect on a number of points, but still are essentially on the same wavelength as the the free market anarchists at the Mises Institute.

Political Theory

Clarence Lee Swartz and Mutualism.