Principle theory vs. magnitude theory

There is a fundamental difference between traditional and modern, or natural and unnatural societies. Traditional societies were organized spontaneously and from below, rather than the products of a centrally controlled forcing integration like today’s mass societies. Traditional societies are reminiscent of trees with hundreds of thousands of natural branches, because they are natural by default. Modern or mass societies are reminiscent of boxes. The boxes are shaken to balance their contents for proper weight distribution. This process is today called social stabilization. But it’s not natural, rather planned. The purpose of these topics is to analyze what led to the world in which we all live today without exception. Has history shaped by principles, or rather by mere raw dominance and natural human compromise and cowardice, well ideologized afterwards? Let’s find out!

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a German-American paleolibertarian and anarcho-capitalist political theorist remarks an idea about a principle based theory, which is so popular even among the mainstream political culture, since all ideologies are based on this theory. “Everything in history is determined by principles, either they are good or evil”. This is the essence of the theory in nutshell, and sounds appealing indeed.

So societies are malfunctioning because people profess wrong principles. According to this idea, the twentieth century horrors could have been avoided with proper principles, which, according to Professor Hoppe, would have been the preference of the ancient regime over democracy. See: Democracy: The God That Failed. This masterpiece is almost perfect, but it’s based on one capital mistake, which was for me a missing piece of puzzle so far. And this mistake is a principle theory itself. Let me illustrate this with two examples:

Example one: Hitler didn’t rise to power at the early 30s because the Germans would have been enthusiastic nazis, (the logic of the theory suggests this) but rather because of fearing chaos, caused by the 29th stock market crash, mass unemployment, hyperinflation, fear of Bolshevism, World War I humiliating defeat, and so on. There was one principle indeed: every form of order is better than chaos. But it was more of a mass psychosis, rather than principle.

Example two: Both the Tsarist and the Soviet regime didn’t collapse because the people revolted against them, but the people revolted against them when these regimes weakened and because of it, and not for loving freedom, but rather for treason. No one could have ever dared thinking about even factory strike during the greatest Stalinist repression. The cause should not be confused with the effect.

The question arises with regard to principle theory. If the libertarian anarchist societies are the best solution for all social problems, why there are no such societies after all on on the entire planet? If the governments are so evil, why they control everything, everywhere on the world? Just because the people all around the world profess wrong principles? Would it really be that simple? Because for me it’s not an answer. I don’t want to destroy the faith in freedom or the arguments of libertarians, but I have to destroy the faith in human greatness, starting with questioning the famous principle argument.

So the key element is understanding the crucial truth about humanity and human nature in general to deal with this question. The question is very naive because supposes that the humanity wants to get better, but it isn’t the case. Societies where we all live aren’t guided with any transcendental moral wish, like “making the world better place” cliché. The slogan however still exists only as slogan. The people are not good or evil in general, the intentions can be good or evil only. They go nowhere from their comfort zone voluntarily, they don’t improve if they can afford not doing so in general, but the world drifts helplessly. The answer why the principle argument does not work is the same why there’s no libertarian, anarchists society, because the people in general don’t want to get better. The people want having comfort and pleasure now, regardless how good or bad for them for a long term. Only the short term, foreseeing future that matters. There is a huge difference between wanting to get better, or wanting to have a comfort now.

The opportunity is still open before the raise of the libertarian anarchists society, but there is a condition. And the condition is not that people should have proper principles. And here the magnitude theory appears. The society has to be small, human scale and transparent, where virtually everyone knows everyone. With this condition a little bunch of people will be sufficient enough to overthrow the government, if there is any. It can happen in this scale, but not because the people want to get better or believe in proper principles, (however they have better chance in this scale) but rather because the government is small and harmless. We know a lot of examples about this, starting from the Greek city states via the little ducharies of medieval Europe, and the Viking’s Iceland to the American wild-west. But when the society starts growing and reaches certain magnitude, the free society and individual freedom is becoming virtually unsustainable. Because large societies require big government and bureaucracy, not because they want to get better, but rather because they can afford it unchecked.

Professor Hoppe doesn’t ignore the magnitude theory either. He is exactly aware of significance of the state’s size. However he doesn’t consider this as significant as the principle theory in expansion of the state.

For this reason, every movement that aims to reform the society is absolutely superfluous, including a libertarian, anarchist one. Every approach, having purpose to reform the society, especially the modern mass society is doomed to fail. Because everything depends upon magnitude, thus the society cannot be reformed. Once the society excess its own ideal size, it requires more and more control, and the more control is required, it will become increasingly difficult to control. The reason of big government and bureaucracy is certainly this. Every attempt that the libertarians want, both anarchist and minarchist to fix this issue, by separating the civil society and government agencies from each other is utterly wrong. The reason for this, because in a modern mass society there’s no real civil society. Everyone belongs to the state by default. The civil society maintains the big government, or even more precisely the government maintains itself by the civil society, hence there will be less and less room for private issues, and everything becomes public affair at the same time. This is the reason why most countries in the world, (mass societies without exception) are semi-totalitarian. The mass societies and all societies beyond certain magnitude (which must be mass societies by definition), can’t be changed by principles. In a tiny states, like Lichtenstein there’s no need movement to maintain the individual freedom and small government, because they maintain themselves by their small nature.

If any movement needed in any society, it means end game for freedom, because it’s an obvious sign of that the society exceeded its own size. Even a bare existence of any political movement for reforming society is an involuntary admission of failure. Every movement by its own existence proves its own failure, even before it can win one single debate, or with seizing power it becomes a new oppressor, just because the society is far beyond a certain magnitude. This is the sad irony that the freedom can never prevail, only by collapsing society for a brief time in a best cases. Having political movement is pointless to fix anything. Why? Because as an ideologies the principle argument does not work.

Ironically Leopold Kohr, an economist, jurist and political scientist, an intellectual author of the magnitude theory also inspired the Small Is Beautiful movement. Unlike Dr. Hoppe he wasn’t so pessimistic about democracy. Because he didn’t consider democracy as ideological issue. Under certain magnitude all societies are democratic and republican, even when they are not formally, and officially (e.g. little dutchies). But every society beyond certain magnitude must be authoritarian, even when it’s democracy and republic formally and officially.

For example the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor empire in reality. It was a coalition of free city states. The German Democratic Republic on the other hand was neither democratic, nor republican. It was a totalitarian buffer state of USSR.

Most people live in the misconception that only good people are needed for power, endowed with the right ideology and as much power as possible. According to this idea, the world could be a wonderful utopia where all problems would be solved, crime, terrorism, pollution, climate change, unemployment, education, if these certain people exercised power with their own noble principles. That is the essence of modernism. Or we need to dissolve big governments by proper principles, at least mitigate their power. That is the essence of libertarianism or classical liberalism, conservatism.

Unfortunately, this is not how the world works, and those noble principles are only post-reasoning afterthought, or just tools of power, but not to make the world a better place, but only to seize exclusively more power. The problem with power is that it shapes everyone who practices it into their own image, and the temptation to abuse could only be resisted by the saints. But power does not attract saints in the first place, that is, those who could handle with it. But even the saints would be tempted by abusing power: “Come on, we are Christians, good guys, we do not steal”. But the sad reality is, no matter what the person who exercises power says, if any of us can do it uncontrollably, no one will be able to resist the temptation that comes with it. Because we are just humans.

Communism, for instance, is a terrible weapon in the hands of those in power against civil society, namely because it legitimizes unlimited power over millions of people, but it is precisely for this reason that it is completely harmless in a dwarf state, or mini-state, where power cannot be unlimited from the outset, such as San Marino. Few know, but San Marino had a communist government, far from Eastern Europe closed behind the Iron Curtain. The threat posed by this government could also have been easily handled by the local, provincial units of the Italian Gendarmerie. See in: Leopold Kohr, The Breakdown of Nations.

The other side of the coin: democracy and the republic, which we all know they are great ideas and can be wonderful, but only because they were originally designed for city-state and mini-state, with the aim of limiting those exercising power. They worked really well there and were synonymous with freedom. But these little republics were not wonderful because they were democratic, but they could be democratic because they were tiny. However, a huge mass society, especially if even a great power, calls itself a democracy or a republic in vain, by its very weight and size, it is definitely an autocracy, it can’t be else. Otherwise, it would risk disintegration, with becoming real democracy. See in: Leopold Kohr, The Breakdown of Nations.

We need to see that power is not an ideological issue, but a matter of sheer size. In other words absolute power corrupts absolutely, relative power, relatively. Because the growth of power never ends. There will always be a room for further law making and regulations. They will never be satisfied. Not because the world will never be perfect, but rather because as any kind of addiction, the addiction to power is never satisfied. They are constantly at war with someone or something, and people are constantly mobilized to fight their endless and meaningless wars, and serve their insatiable power addiction. They are unable to enjoy a single moment of peace. Their lives are constant crisis management. They want to solve the problems of every future generation when they are unable to solve their own. As result, we can never have a chance to live a normal life. So this is the problem of power, modernism, and gigantomania. Who wants to solve all problems simultaneously, fails to solve any. Or by solving a problem, they create ten new ones.

Any society that exceeds its own size should disintegrate, which means the breakdown of nations in practice. Opinions are divided on the ideal size of a society, which is roughly between two hundred and two hundred thousand. A society must be large enough to give the individual protection, but small enough to still be transparent. Societies above this are already carrying a burden. So we don’t have to think in larger and larger units like globalists and empire builders, but in smaller and smaller ones, following the example of Switzerland, which consists of 22 small cantons.

What would happen to Switzerland if it became a nation-state?

Besides it would be completely losing its character and its unique charm and effectiveness, the French- and Italian-speaking populations of Switzerland, who are now proud citizens of their own small cantons, would now find themselves as a minority of a centralizing, uniformizing, conformizing superstate. They would become rootless in their own country, as the dwellers of depopulated villages and urban proletarian vagrants of nation-states. Separatist aspirations to preserve or regain their own independent identity would be revived in their own cantons against the dominant German-speaking majority, in the extreme case, with their intention to join France and Italy. Moreover, even German-speaking cantons would revolt against their own centrist government. Whether they succeed in this or not, we need to see where the unification mania leads. Because this is the recipe for all the civil wars that appear in the modern age. But Switzerland is not an association of nations, but of states where there are no minorities, but cantons, as opposed to nation-states, where minorities have “rights,” not independence. See in: Leopold Kohr, The Breakdown of Nations.

But I could also say the Italian nation-state as a counterexample, where for centuries the flourishing and independent city-states, principalities, and republics of Italy were replaced with an ungovernable unified preparation, which has been in an almost constant crisis since its inception, and where Mussolini alone was capable of stable governance, with results of which we know, and the price that Italians had to pay.

It must be understood that even linguistic, cultural, ethnic identity does not give reason to political unity. If so, why does Gibraltar not want to join the Spanish nation-state? Why do they insist on staying part of the United Kingdom at all costs?Why did Hong Kong insist on the same at all costs? Why doesn’t Monaco want to become a French city? Why did the German-speaking citizens of the already mentioned Switzerland not seize the opportunity to join the German nation-state of Bismarck? Instead, why did the Germans, Italians, French remain in a country when there is no linguistic, cultural or ethnic connection between them? Why did the United States break away from the culturally, linguistically, religiously identical Britain? None happened for ideological reasons. If love of freedom alone does not count as an ideological reason, ideology came only after that.

There is no national community of destiny that can prevent the separation of the citizens of its territory, if they have enough power to break up with nation. Just as there is no minority that can break away from the majority society if they do not have enough strength to do so. Since separatist, linguistic, cultural, sectarian, ethnic identity and political unity are two separate things. This is what nationalists do not understand, as the unifiers and collectivists either. The basis of civilization is private property and the freedom that comes with it, not national unity, and worship of masses and state. This is the secret of Switzerland’s success.

Everyone can already see that the West is in decline, but few are aware of the reasons. Some say not religious enough, not respectful of tradition, too secular. Others say it is decadent, materialistic, immoral, softened. Of course, this is all true, except that these are already symptoms of decline and not the cause. Because the world is not governed by principles, but the size that matters. If the society exceeded its own size, the decline is inevitable. Every empire carries the seeds of its own fall, only by expanding. The empire will be too big, both in external expansion and internal one, like bureaucracy, so it must collapse, this, of course, also burys civilization. The freedom creates traditions, and the power creates ideologies and idols.

Only one principle that matters in reality, the Darwinian. The stronger tends to take advantage of own physical superiority. As ugly as it sounds, but the ideologies are only excuse for institutional violence.

The philosophers of the Austrian School are absolutely right that the oppression of power is not physical in nature, primarily, but not ideological either, rather psychological. Evidence of this is that even the most committed devotees of the regime would not pay tax on a voluntary basis, even they should be obligated to do so by law. It is absolutely true that all political systems, including the most oppressing ones, need the support of the public opinion, but it has nothing to do with the value system, it’s clear mass psychosis. So the principle theory is utterly wrong.

If anyone still believes in the good old principle theory, that the humanity could be changed by proper ideologies to the desired direction, in this case by the libertarian, anarchist one, well good luck. It will never happen. Because we are just humans, and the world isn’t governed by principles. Even the Christianity had not be able to change the humanity. Four hundred million years of evolutionary innervation would have to be overridden for the theory to work, and of course the Christian wisdom, that we are all sinners, and no human can handle with the power. There are some virtuous people of course, but they can’t change anything. The people don’t listen philosophers and arguments but they listen demagogues and slogans. This is because they try to find an excuse for rule others or being ruled by others. And this has been the case since the beginning of time.

No society can be reformed from above, from the level of power. Once the society reaches certain size, starts to decline, then collapses, and everything starts again from the beginning. Every civilization therefore has duration, ascension, prosperity, decline, collapse. the flourishing period and freedom can exist only between the ascension and decline, or only under certain magnitude, but nothing is built from above. If anyone doubts this, try building a house starting from the roof and going down. Like everything, civilization is built from below, at the level of individuals, families, groups, tribes, clans, cantons, which is not coordinated centrally by anyone, but is arranged by nature into a strict hierarchy. This is the line of nature, which is broken by modernism. But the nature can’t be tricked. It will always repay, and reclaim what belongs to her, the exclusive monopoly of ordering, creation, and regulation. The natural process of building civilization cannot be bypassed, overridden, hacked. With the advent of modern industrial mass societies, this structure has disintegrated, as has society as well into an unstructured set.

The modern conception ignores this natural process of building civilization. For modern man, everything is just a matter of will and power, and of course appropriate principles. If these are given, then everything in the world can be solved. The fact that it never works in practice doesn’t bother anyone. They always find an excuse. But all the problems of mass societies are the mass societies themselves, and power creates ten new ones by solving one problem. There is no ideology that can replace spontaneous and natural social self-organization. There is no pathos and propaganda that can fill the gaping space created by the disintegration of the structure of civilization in the modern age. With greater national unity there is no real principles, no up and no down, no one is right, no one is wrong, everything is up to whim of power. There is no stable reference point, everything is relative and can be explained, and the no means yes. Everyone and everything are subordinated to “social stability”, which is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain because it is not natural.

The power is not interested in saving civilization, in fact it fears of civilization. A self-organizing society would call into question the mere existence of power. In addition, the state administration of mass societies is too rigid to be able to react in time to any small changes, due to its static structure, which generate a protracted crisis in a matter of seconds, with huge unemployment, and recession. And it will take many years to recover from the crisis, because it takes so long for the whole system to restructure itself from top to bottom, and be able to adapt to changed circumstances, usually at the cost of living up to future reserves. In contrast, mini-states based on micro-communities never go through major crises. The dynamics of civilization immediately adapt to any change and respond appropriately in a matter of moments. That is why large-scale development is a myth. And the state always solves the problems of yesterday only, by creating tons of new ones for today and for the future.

Mass society is, in fact, the greatest threat to human civilization, of which there can only be one end, the communism. Thus the disintegration of mass societies would thus be the beginning of civilization, but people will not give up mass societies voluntarily. Mass society is nothing more than institutionalized chaos, the illusion of order. In mass societies there is no structure, but ‘values’, such as conservative or liberal, but since the structure provides value in reality, with no structure the slogans are losing meaning, and they will be as they are, empty slogans only, clichés. Only one thing can limit human megalomania, and that is neither common sense nor conscience nor any human factors, but the raw power of Mother Nature.