Crosscurrents (Vol. 1 No. 4)

Women Against the State

The long-awaited anthology of individualist feminist writings, edited by the libertarian scholar and feminist Wendy McElroy, is to be published by the Cato Institute in December. In Freedom, Feminism, and the State McElroy shows how the individualist tradition in feminism views the state as the prime oppressor of women. The introduction to the collection is an important contribution to, and clarification of, the often confused debate on the rights of women and the source of their oppression. Freedom, Feminism, and the State ($5.95) can be ordered from the Cato Institute, 224 Second St. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003.

The History and Sociology of the State

A great deal has been written in the last ten years on the nature and origins of the modern nation-state. Many of these studies are creative combinations of economic and political history and sociology; a combination which can provide penetrating insights into the development of state institutions. We intend publishing a bibliographical essay on the state in the near future. In the meantime, we will briefly mention several important recent contributions.

Max Weber has provided the stimulus for a great deal of interesting material on the state and bureaucratic organization. One such study in the Weberian tradition is Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1980) by Reinhard Bendix. This is a comparative study of the origins of the modern state, in particular, the origins of the Russian, Japanese, and the major Western European states of England, France, and Germany.

Perry Anderson, the editor of the English Marxist journal, the New Left Review, has written an amazingly detailed and comprehensive history of the origins of the absolutist state. Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: New Left Books, 1975) is a pathbreaking work in spite of Anderson’s Marxist perspective. A shorter and more traditional account is J. H. Shennan, The Origins of the Modern European State 1450–1725 (London: Hutchinson, 1974).

Charles Tilly has edited a collection of essays on The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton University Press, 1975). The essays are not all as useful as Tilly’s introductory piece on “Reflections on the History of European Statemaking,” but they survey an incredible amount of material and provide a very useful bibliography for further work.

The great German historian, Otto Hintze, spent an entire lifetime writing on the development of the Prussian bureaucracy and state. In his later years he was influenced by the sociology of Herbert Spencer, Max Weber, and Franz Oppenheimer, and he turned to writing on more philosophical and sociological topics. His essays, “The Formation of States and Constitutional Development: A Study in History and Politics” and “Military Organization and the Organization of the State” (in which he shows his debt to Spencer) are extremely thought-provoking. They can be found in the collection edited by Felix Gilbert, The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975).

For those who want a short overview of recent sociological theories of the state a good place to begin is Gianfranco Poggi, The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction (Stanford University Press, 1978). Poggi’s book is very useful as a guide to recent European literature on the state.

A more recent discussion of the development of the idea of the state since the fifteenth century is Kenneth H. F. Dyson, The State Tradition in Western Europe: A Study of an Idea and Institution (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980). Dyson gives an excellent history of the idea of the state, what intellectuals and philosophers have meant by this concept, and how they have used it to explain and justify the relations of power in their respective societies. Dyson’s problem is that he is aware of the present crisis in the idea of the state following the wars and instabilities of the last century, but he is uncertain whether abandoning the idea of the state or simply a “redefinition” is in order.

For those who are interested in gleaning what they can from Marxist interpretations of the state, Bob Jessup’s The Capitalist State: Marxist Theories and Methods (New York University Press, 1982) provides a good summary of the literature. He concentrates on East German writers and the influential Marxist theorist of the state, Nicos Poulantzas. Only recommended to those who have some familiarity with Marxist writings because of the heavy doses of jargon.

Not only have the Austrians made great contributions to the study of economics, science, and art, but they have also been innovators in the sociological analysis of the state. One of the earliest Austrian researchers was Ludwig Gumplowicz, whose Outlines of Sociology, ed. Irving Louis Horowitz (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1980) has been very influential. In this volume Gumplowicz presents his theory that the state had its origins in the conquest of one racial group by another (true in certain respects of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the time when he was writing). Gumplowicz’s best known follower was Franz Oppenheimer, only one of whose books is available in English, The State, trans. John Gitterman (New York: Life Editions, 1975). Oppenheimer expanded this slim essay into his magnum opus. For those who can brave the tough German prose, it has been reprinted, System der Soziologie vol.2, Der Staat, 2nd edition (Stuttgart: Gustave Fischer Verlag, 1964).

Oppenheimer’s class theory was applied to the analysis of American history and institutions by Albert Jay Nock, in Our Enemy the State ed. by Walter E. Grinder (New York: Free Life Editions, 1973). This edition has Grinder’s excellent introductory and bibliographical essays on American history and class analysis. The essays describe the origins of Nock’s thought, and show how modern scholarship has confirmed and extended Nock’s penetrating insights into the nature of the state in general and the American state in particular.

There are two systematic overviews of the growth of state power. Both are vital for developing a libertarian theory of historical change, and for gaining insight into the direction in which the modern world has been steadily moving. The left-wing anarchist, Rudolf Rocker, was able to smuggle out of Nazi Germany a masterful analysis of the history of the modern state. Nationalism and Culture has been republished by Michael E. Coughlin (Stillwater, Minnesota: Coixside Press, 1978). The other great interpretative history of European society from the very libertarian perspective of the neverending struggle between freedom and domination is Alexander Rüstow’s aptly named Freedom and Domination: A Historical Critique of Civilization (Princeton University Press, 1980). Rüstow brilliantly combines classical liberal political philosophy and the kind of class analysis we have been describing here. It is to be hoped that the next generation of liberal scholars will be able to continue where Rüstow, Oppenheimer, and Nock left off.

Liberty Fund and C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics 1983 Summer Seminar

A research seminar on applications of Austrian Economic theory will be held in New York City beginning late Sunday afternoon, August 7th, and ending Thurs-afternoon, August 11th. The seminar is for faculty members in economics and is sponsored by the Liberty Fund and the C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics.

The seminar will feature discussions and formal comments on original papers by up to twelve participants led by the following economists:

Roger W. Garrison (Auburn University); Israel M. Kirzner (New York University); Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr. (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas); and Mario J. Rizzo (New York University).

Professor Rizzo will direct the program and arrange the logistical details. Although all applied topics are welcome, the following areas are especially encouraged: Economic Analysis of Law, Economics of Expectations, Industrial Organization, and Monetary Economics.

Up to twelve faculty members in economics who have written or are willing to write a twenty-five to fifty-page paper on applied Austrian Eonomics will be chosen to participate. The overall purpose of the seminar is to encourage such research and subject it to intensive peer criticism.

Each applicant should send a curriculum vitae, an outline of the proposed paper (3–5 pages), or the paper itself (if already completed) to Professor Mario Rizzo at the C. V. Starr Center, 269 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10003, telephone (212) 598-7891. The deadline for applications is February 1, 1983. Applicants will be notified by March 1st. Completed papers must be received no later than June 24, 1983.