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Notes and Commentary
By RONALD N. NEFF
1. February 1793.
2. In the late 1960s, Godwin's book was not in print in the
United States, and in any case there was no copy of it or abridgement of it in
Childs's library during the time I had access to it (and, for a few months, had
charge of it), viz. 1971-72. I believe that he gained his acquaintance with
Godwin's work from a collection of excerpts from anarchist writings, to wit,
Leonard I. Krimerman and Lewis Perry, Patterns of Anarchy (Garden
City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966). We free-market anarchists of
the late 1960s and early 1970s prized this volume highly (and, indeed, we still
do) for its selections from the individualist anarchist tradition, some of which
continue to be otherwise out of print. Both of the Godwin passages Childs cites
are to be found on page 187.
While at the State University of New York in Buffalo, Childs took a special
seminar on anarchism under Lewis Perry. It is possible that Perry had a copy of
Godwin's book and that Childs could have had access to it; but there are two
reasons for thinking Childs was drawing on the Doubleday volume instead of
Godwin. One is that he makes the same mistake Krimerman and Perry make in
giving the name of Godwin's book. The correct title is Enquiry Concerning
Political Justice and Its Influence on Modern Morals and Happiness.
Another is that the same ellipsis appears in the Krimerman and Perry passage
as appears in Childs's quotation.
The editorial commentary preceding the Godwin material also takes note of
Godwin's unusual starting point. After noting that Godwin held that the state
produced the very moral and legal evils that it was supposed to prevent, it
continues:
An edition of the Enquiry, abridged and edited by K. Codell Carter and
containing a few appendices from Godwin's other writings (Oxford: Oxford
University Press [Clarendon], 1971), was reviewed in Books for Libertarians
(March 1975, pp. 2, 4) by Childs, who called the book, "the magnum opus
of one of the great minds of the 18th century." The theme of the review was
Godwin's evaluation of "the universal exercise of private judgment" as a
doctrine "unspeakably beautiful."
In 1976, Penguin Books (New York and London) issued a one-volume edition of
the book, edited (but not abridged) and with an introduction by Isaac Kramnick.
The two quotations Childs cites are to be found in that edition on pp. 200 and
198-99 respectively; Childs quoted the second passage again in his review of
the Oxford edition.
3. I have been unable to find any formal definition for the term
"floating abstraction" that was generally available at the time Childs was
writing, which is not to say that there was none. In 1969, a fair amount of
"official" Objectivism still existed in the form of series of taped lectures,
which were, for the most part, unavailable commercially. The acrimonious
Rand-Branden split of 1968 complicated the copyright status of that material,
and, withal, its availability, despite the release of the Basic Principles course
by Academic Associates as a large set of LPs. And, of course, very little of the
Objectivist canon as it existed in 1969 has been made available on the
Internet.
The term has no index entry in Rand's Introduction to Objectivist
Epistemology (first published in eight successive issues of The
Objectivist, July 1966-February 1967, and in 1967 as a paperback [New York:
The Objectivist, Inc.]; superseded by the expanded 2nd edition, Harry
Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff, eds. [New York: NAL Books, 1990]); and there is
no entry for it in The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z, edited
by Harry Binswanger (New York: New American Library, 1986).
It seems to have been given formal definition by Leonard Peikoff in
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (New York: Dutton, 1991):
floating abstractions are
The definition for "floating abstractions" in Ayn Rand, Glossary of
Objectivist Definitions, edited by Allison T. Kunze and Jean Moroney
(Gaylordsville, Conn.: Second Renaissance Books: 1999) stops at the words
"concepts denote."
Objectivism's technical terms can pose a difficulty: in addition to providing an
idiosyncratic philosophical vocabulary, they sometimes double as extended
terms of abuse. Sometimes, as Peikoff's definition suggests, they perform both
functions in a single context.
4. Childs's use of the phrase "pro-life" parallels that of many
Randians, with their adherence to the principle that what sustains or enhances
life is good and what destroys or impoverishes it is evil. This essay having
been written before Roe v. Wade was decided, Childs's comments should
not be understood in the context of the anti-abortion movement or its
designation as "pro-life."
5. It is one of the scandals of the modern libertarian
movement that the Tannehills and their work are not better known. Morris
Tannehill, a prodigious letter-writer, sent many letters to Childs, to me, and to
others, and he was constantly refining his definition of rights. Sometimes he
would scrap it and start over, and at other times he attempted to avoid the
term altogether: for example, he and Linda Tannehill do not make use of the
concept in their Liberty via the Market ("The United States of America":
self-published, 1969). (The quotation marks around the place of publication are
the Tannehills'.) The definition Childs is quoting here predates the publication
of the Tannehills' Market for Liberty (Lansing, Mich.: self-published,
1970), so it probably comes from one of those letters, if not from a copy of an
early draft of the book; he is not quoting exactly the definition that they
ultimately used in The Market for Liberty (p. 11), but it does not differ
substantially from it.
In a letter to me dated January 7, 1970, Childs said that he was "becoming
increasingly dissatisfied with the definition of 'rights' offered by Morris
Tannehill, since I cannot fit it into my general derivation of rights tightly
enough...." In "Anarchism & Justice," Part 1 (The Individualist, May 1971), he
says of the Tannehills' definition that it is a true statement about rights, but
that it is not a definition. The definition he offers there is: "A right is a
principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social
context." (p. 5)
6. The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: New American
Library, 1964), p. 102. "Collectivized 'Rights'" first appeared in The Objectivist
Newsletter (June 1963, pp. 21, 23-24).
7. The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 107. "The Nature of
Government" first appeared in The Objectivist Newsletter (December 1963, pp.
45-46, 49-50) and later as an appendix to Capitalism: The Unknown
Ideal (New York: New American Library, 1966), pp 295-303. Childs had also
mentioned this disagreement in his Open Letter (see note 9). In his letter of
January 7, 1970, he reiterated it, but offered no new definition of his own.
8. The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 108; Capitalism:
The Unknown Ideal, p. 297; Objectivist Newsletter, p. 45. In all original
sources, a new paragraph begins with "The use of physical force ..." Childs is
quoting either from Capitalism or from the Newsletter; in
Virtue, the phrase "gang rule" appears as an open compound.
9. The Open Letter is reprinted in Joan Kennedy Taylor, ed.,
Liberty Against Power: Essays by Roy A. Childs, Jr. (San Francisco: Fox &
Wilkes, 1994), pp. 145-56. The title used in that book, "Objectivism and the
State," was the subtitle of the Open Letter when it appeared in The Rational
Individualist (later The Individualist). The actual letter carried the date July 4,
1969.
10. Virtue of Selfishness, p. 103; Objectivist
Newsletter, p. 23. Emphasis in the originals. In both sources, a new paragraph
begins with the words "The citizens of a free nation ..."
11. Childs's discussion of agency is heavily influenced by
Lysander Spooner's No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
(Larkspur, Colo.: The Pine Tree Press, 1966), a copy of which he had in his
library and which the SIL Book Service sold. (The essay can also be found in
The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner in Six Volumes, edited with a
biography and introduction by Charles Shively, vol. 1 [Weston, Mass.: M & S
Press, 1971], with the original pagination; and in The Lysander Spooner
Reader, with an introduction by George Smith [San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes,
1992], pp. 77-122. It also may be found on any number of Websites.
No Treason also figured in his arguments in his debate with Jeffrey St.
John ("Anarchism vs. Limited Govt.," Audio Forum Sound Seminar #173
[Guilford, Conn.: Jeffrey Norton Publishers, Inc., 1971]); and in "Anarchism &
Justice," especially in his discussion of Mortimer Adler (Part IV, The
Individualist, October 1971, pp. 14-29).
Childs was so convinced of the fundamental soundness of Spooner's insights
that when he managed the SIL Book Service he refrained from promoting a book
about the Declaration of Independence that had been stocked since before the
publication of the Open Letter. The book was titled They Signed for Us.
He said he was opposed to the view that anyone could bind others by their
signatures and that he would delegitimize the idea that they could whenever he
had the opportunity.
A book that later expanded Childs's thinking about representation was Robert
Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (New York: Harper Torchbooks,
1970), which the SIL Book Service promoted in its June-July 1971 advertising
bulletins and which Books for Libertarians (BFL) carried for several years
afterward. Wolff likewise highlighted the absurdities inherent in
"representation" and dwelt on the contradiction between political authority and
personal autonomy, although he seemed completely unaware of Spooner. In the
May 1973 issue of BFL, not because of any change in his own views but rather
because of his delight in intellectual exchange, Childs published Tibor Machan's
review of Jeffrey H. Reiman, In Defense of Political Philosophy: A Reply to
Robert Paul Wolff's "In Defense of Anarchism" (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1972). Wolff later published a second edition of In Defense of
Anarchism (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970, 1976) containing a
30-page discussion of Reiman's arguments.
12. In The Objectivist Newsletter, August 1963, p.
31; and in Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: New
American Library, 1966), p. 113. At one time Alan Greenspan was one of a close
circle of friends of Ayn Rand, and a few of his articles appeared in her
publications. So far as the public is concerned, Greenspan's rise to power began
with an advisory position in the 1968 Nixon campaign. After the election he
"served" on the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Force, which gave
us first the transitional "19-year-old draft," then the transitional lottery, then
the all-volunteer force. All functioned and were intended to function as
methods for selecting young men to fight in unjust wars and invasions; to kill
soldiers, rebels, and civilians in countries posing no threat to the liberties of
Americans; and to face being killed or maimed themselves, for all of which
they were paid from the proceeds of extortion and robbery. Greenspan was
chairman of Gerald Ford's Council of Economic Advisers, and as Ronald Reagan's
chairman of the National Commission on Social Security Reform he oversaw the
designing of a tax scheme that weighs most heavily on the poor and middle
class, the purpose of which is to sustain the fraudulent Ponzi scheme that is
Social Security. As chairman of the Federal Reserve System, he has propped up
the tyrannies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W.
Bush. Like Milton Friedman and so many other economists and "champions of
freedom" who have helped to streamline the state and solidify its power, he
will have many crimes to answer for, come the Day of the Rope.
13. Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State: A
Treatise on Economic Principles (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Company,
Inc., 1962). Murray Rothbard did not serve on presidential commissions
and never held any government position. Despite his being well known to Ayn
Rand and her circle of friends, none of his articles ever appeared in an
Objectivist publication, and none of his books was ever made available or sold
by an Objectivist book service. Like so many economists and champions of
freedom who lived out their lives in honest labor, ignored by the state's
"consensus universe" and never serving it, Murray Rothbard, not having many
crimes to answer for, had nothing to fear from the Day of the Rope.
14. Childs is drawing on Objectivism's discussion of the
fallacy of the stolen concept, though he does not use that term.
The fallacy of "the stolen concept" is implicit in much of Galt's speech in
Atlas Shrugged and is central to many Objectivist critiques. The term
"stolen concept" appears in Galt's speech, without technical definition: "As they
feed on stolen wealth in body, so they feed on stolen concepts in mind, and
proclaim that honesty consists of refusing to know that one is stealing. As they
use effects while denying causes, so they use our concepts while denying the
roots and the existence of the concepts they are are using." Rand, For the
New Intellectual (New York: New American Library, 1961), p. 154;
Atlas Shrugged (New York: Random House, Inc., 1957), p. 1039; paperback
ed. (New York: New American Library, 1957), p. 964. Rand's discussion of this
fallacy in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (pp. 3 and 59) is not
presented as a definition. (The corresponding discussions in The Objectivist are
at July 1966, p. 98, and December 1966, p. 181.)
Nathaniel Branden, "'The Stolen Concept,'" in The Objectivist Newsletter
(January 1963), pp. 2, 4, supplies what seems to be the only formal definition
of the fallacy ever given: "the act of using a concept while ignoring,
contradicting, or denying the validity of the concepts on which it logically and
genetically depends." His definition is one of the few Branden-originated
elements of the Objectivist "vocabulary" to remain in use.
As central as it is in Objectivist critiques, even Leonard Peikoff, in
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, does not define it in his
discussion of the fallacy (pp. 136-41), which is amusing given how much is
made of precise definitions in Objectivist literature. Peikoff does define it in a
footnote to Rand's essay "Philosophical Detection," as it appears in her
posthumous book, which he edited, Philosophy: Who Needs It
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1982), p. 26; and in paperback (New York: New
American Library, 1982), p. 22. There, in a footnote that was absent from the
original essay (The Ayn Rand Letter, January 28-February 11, 1974, pp.
285-93), he supplied a definition that is almost exactly Branden's. He gives the
source of the definition as The Objectivist Newsletter, but of course does not
name Branden, leaving the reader who does not check, which is to say, leaving
nearly all his readers, to suppose that it was Rand's definition ... as, I am sure,
he intended.
15. In the "Intellectual Ammunition Department," The
Objectivist Newsletter, February 1965, pp. 7-8; reprinted in Leonard Peikoff,
ed., The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought by Ayn Rand
(New York: Penguin Books, 1989, pp. 17-22). Excerpts can be found at http://www.freedomkeys.com/ar-whodecides.htm.
16. Objectivist Newsletter, p. 7; Voice of Reason, p.
18, where the hyphen is omitted.
17. Rand, For the New Intellectual, p. 178; Atlas
Shrugged, p. 1058; paperback ed., p. 982.
18. P. 8, in The Objectivist Newsletter, where
"power-seekers" is hyphenated; pp. 21-22 in The Voice of Reason.
19. Nathaniel Branden, "Basic Principles of Objectivism,"
was made available as a 20-lecture set of cassettes by Robert Kephart's Audio
Forum; they were reviewed by Childs in the August 1974 issue of Books for
Libertarians, pp. 1-2, in which he called the series "the most serious and
systematic attempt so far to present a comprehensive antidote to the poisons
in the intellectual cultural life destroying Western Civilization." Oddly, he
began one paragraph, "Listening to these lectures now, for the first time ..."
Childs may be quoting from the set of LPs issued by Academic Associates in
late 1968 or 1969. Whether the course as recorded in LP format was identical
to the course Branden used to deliver at the Nathaniel Branden Institute (and by
reel-to-reel tape at the various Institute outposts throughout the country), I
cannot say. I believe the same masters were used to produce both the LPs and
the cassettes (Audio Forum Sound Seminar #561-80 [Guilford, Conn.: Jeffrey
Norton Publishers, Inc.]).
20. Liberty via the Market was published in March
1969 (see above), so Childs may be referring to it. But I suspect rather that
this idea grew out of his correspondence with Morris Tannehill. In their
Acknowledgements in The Market for Liberty, the Tannehills credit Skye
D'Aureous and Natalee Hall — two California libertarians who published
The Libertarian Connection, the mimeographed forerunner of all Internet news
groups — with having brought to their attention "ideas on data banks for
intellectual property, educational TV, and the interest of insurance companies
in medical and drug safety...."
21. Author's revised text begins after "anti-life." The original text reads:
In any case, this is the epistemological basis of anarchism. What it comes down
to is nothing but an understanding of the objectivity of moral principles.
Briefly, my case has been this: either the functions monopolized by the state
are morally legitimate, or they are not.
If they are not, then the state is an immoral institution, since it is performing
improper functions.
If they are morally legitimate, then there is no justification for the state's use
of coercion to prevent others from doing the same thing. So long as the
state uses aggression to maintain its monopoly over physical force in a given
area, it is immoral. When it stops and allows others to compete for customers
by supplying the same, legitimate service, it is no longer a state.
This is the alternative faced by the advocate of government. To consistently
apply his moral-epistemological principles, or to evade the reality of the
contradictions he advocates. To a man of self-esteem, the choice should be
obvious. To those who prefer not to think about the matter — they have
chosen their own course of action, and will have to live with it. I do not
morally condemn them. They may very well have legitimate reasons for not
considering the issue. That is their choice. But if they do not — and they
alone know whether this is true or not — then I do not have to say
anything. The moral principles which they advocate say everything that needs
to be said.
To those who have considered the issue and are free-market anarchists (no
matter what twists of rhetoric they go through to avoid the only logical term
to classify them with), I can only say: you have taken the first step. Integrate
what you have learned, and other steps will come in time. Principles are not
irrelevant to man, or to life on this earth. It is principles which make both
possible.
22. The only subsequent essay dealing with anarchism per se
that ever appeared was "Anarchism & Justice."
23. At first, limited-state libertarianism was being
abandoned. The efforts to meet Childs's arguments of the Open Letter were few
and ineffectual. But it is now apparent that Childs was wrong in thinking that
the way to defend limited-state libertarianism was to meet his arguments.
When libertarianism began to gain ground, its two major focal points —
the Libertarian Party and the Cato Institute — both, for different reasons,
prevailed on libertarians to drop the subject. Since arguments were the only
weapon free-market anarchism ever had, once they were silenced it gained no
more ground. Today, nearly all libertarians are limited-state libertarians. As
David Boaz, vice president of the Cato Institute, wrote: "Libertarians are not
'anti-government.' Libertarians support limited, constitutional government
— limited not just in size [or strength] but, of far greater importance, in
the scope of its powers." (CATO Policy Report, July/August 1998, p. 2) Indeed,
many so-called libertarians can now be found who oppose certain forms of tax
cuts (called "junk tax cuts") and who are willing to rationalize certain forms of
gun control, enhancement of the FBI's surveillance powers, the INS, and
government aid to schools (and therefore government control of schools)
through vouchers. Moreover, all plans to privatize Social Security, including
those promoted by libertarians, will obviously entail federal oversight of the
stock market.
There are even some well-known Objectivists who have been so eager to
support the so-called War on Terrorism that they are unwilling to categorically
denounce a national I.D. program's going into effect or the continuation of
tax-supported, government foreign aid to Israel. One likes to think that had she
lived to see it, Ayn Rand would have denounced them with all the vituperation
of which she was capable.
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Godwin's argument is noteworthy in a second way: it supplies an
epistemological premise to establish his moral conclusion. This appeal
to the concept of knowledge (to its internal relation to independent judgment)
and to the sources of human ignorance and error, most clearly distinguishes
Godwin from other anarchist thinkers. (p. 186)
concepts detached from existents, concepts that a person takes
over from other men without knowing what specific units the concepts denote.
A floating abstraction is not an integration of factual data; it is a memorized
linguistic custom representing in the person's mind a hash made of random
concretes, habits, and feelings that blend imperceptibly into other hashes
which are the content of other, similarly floating abstractions. The "concepts"
of such a mind are not cognitive devices. They are parrotlike imitations of
language backed in essence by patches of fog. (p. 96)
Editor's note. Readers may be interested in visiting LysanderSpooner.org, a site that "explores the life, history, scholarship, and influence of Lysander Spooner: one of the most provocative, eclectic and prolific American legal writers of the Nineteenth Century."
It is to attempt to morally disarm the victims of an
aggressor, which is morally equivalent to sanctioning the criminal and helping
him to get away with his crime. The moral stature of any such
individual is obvious. It is not necessary here to go into the question of
libertarian tactics; it is not necessary to provide a road map of how to attain
liberty. All that I have been concerned with here is providing a moral
justification for the use of retaliatory violence against individual aggressors
in the state apparatus, which means: a justification for revolution. This,
needless to add, is a valid position regardless of whether or not one is an
anarchist.