Libertarian..? Scandinavian..? Excluded middle..!!

‘I very early in my life decided I didn’t believe in the capitalist system. Frederick Soddy, the physicist, said, “Economics? It should be called banditry.” I mean it’s the science of robbing and looting, organized.‘ – RAW, 2001 (Lance Bauscher interview)

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Written in response to an anonymous comment (at RAWIllumination.net) which seemed to frame libertarianism as an “excluded middle” (in the sense that RAW imports that term from discussions of Aristotelian 2-valued logic into debates on politics/economics), this post argues that the economic ideology of the dominant strands of US libertarianism (and its extensions in Silicon Valley Billionaire schemes) follows the same basic premises as neoliberalism and market fundamentalism – premises that Wilson didn’t support, and in fact repeatedly argued against.

The excluded middle

By “excluded middle” in economics/politics, Robert Anton Wilson referred to the alternatives “that transcend the hackneyed debate between monopoly Capitalism and totalitarian Socialism”. Of those alternatives, he described some of his favorites in his essays, ‘The Rich Economy’, ‘Left and Right: A Non-Euclidean Perspective’ (this contains the economic “excluded middle” quote), and elsewhere.

Before we get to those, I note that the dichotomy of “monopoly Capitalism and totalitarian Socialism” seems contained within what Wilson calls “patrist” thinking. And that his favored alternatives have a distinctly “matrist” conception/flavour (more below on this).

Patrist/matrist, of course, seems just another conceptual dichotomy that may, itself, cry out for another “excluded middle” – but Bob took this dichotomy seriously, and I see good reasons for its usefulness as a model of the moral structures underpinning political/economic thought in the embodied humanity game. (Don’t ask me what happens if “our” consciousness gets uploaded to something else).

The question arises: do the political/economic notions coming from some prominent Silicon Valley influencers (several of whom now support Trump) count as “excluded middle” type alternatives in RAW’s sense? My short answer: no, not really – most I’ve looked at seem premised on fairly mainstream “market economics” notions (themselves based on outdated Old Enlightenment dogmas about rationality and truth, etc, as applied to individuals and “market forces” – currently present in neoliberalism, Ayn Rand-style hardcore market fundamentalism and also in much “leftwing” economic thinking). And some just look like regressive, gated techno-fascist extremes of monopoly capitalism. (But to give “credit” where due, Elon Musk stated last year that “Universal Basic Income is going to be necessary… the harder challenge, how do people then have meaning [after deriving it from employment]”. I just hope he really means “universal”, and not “conditional”.)

RAW’s favorite “excluded middle” economic alternatives include variants of what we now call UBI (Universal Basic Income): National Dividend, Guaranteed Annual Income, Negative Income Tax. Also “Rising Income through Cybernetic Homeostasis” (RICH), conceived by RAW and Wayne Benner, which combines, among other things, an encouragement of massive levels of unemployment through cybernetic automation of work, plus the above mentioned variants of UBI. (These are documented in The Illuminati Papers, in ‘The RICH Economy’ chapter).

Elsewhere, RAW lists some of his other favorites: eg zero interest currency (an idea that originated with early anarchists Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Josiah Warren and Benjamin Tucker), “stamp scrip” (Silvio Gesell’s notion of negative interest currency, aka “rusting bank notes”), etc.

The individualist-mutualist anarchism of the above mentioned anarchists (Proudhon & Co), RAW described (eg in his “Non-Euclidean Perspective” essay) as “based on contracts that are to the advantage of all”. To repeat: to the advantage of all. That has somewhat different implications when applied to societies (as opposed to limited parties in private business negotiations). It echoes Buckminster Fuller’s utopian idea of a society in which “computers manage the economy, programmed with a prime directive to advantage all without disadvantaging any — the same goal sought by the mutualist system” (to quote RAW again).

Matrist/Patrist digression

“to the advantage of all” – RAW
“to advantage all without disadvantaging any” – Bucky Fuller
“Universal” “unconditional” (benefits/dividends) – RAW

These express “matrist” or “nurturant” moral conceptions/values – in contrast to conditional, for the deserving/strong only “patrist” judgments. In the original patrist dichotomy cited by RAW, above, attributes of “deserving” and “strong”, etc, get measured either by “the free market” (so-called), or by the “General Secretary” of the Communist Party.

Empathy, a primary matrist value, doesn’t occur in the “middle” of anything, but it gets excluded (as irrelevant or sentimental) from the above mentioned “rational-actor”/”self-interest” market dogmas, and totalitarian doctrines. And not just excluded, but inhibited by competing neural structures constantly reinforced by cartoonishly dogmatic “rational” “free market” models (cartoonish because they reduce, to simple-minded applies-to-all rigidity, the visionary wisdom of Adam Smith or the subtlety of Hayek, etc), or equally cartoonish – but no less chilling/horrific – authoritarian regimes. So: inhibited empathic functioning on both patrist sides of the economic dichotomy that RAW sought to escape .

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The Scandinavian model favored by RAW

Most of the “excluded middle” alternatives favored by RAW exist largely in theory only, with some small-scale, limited “for real” implementations or experiments (notably, though, UBI trials seem to have had increasing traction/success). But the “Scandinavian” “social-individualist” model that RAW praised stands out as having worked – with successful social results – on a national scale, for decades.

RAW on “Scandinavian socialism”: “Clean streets, a low crime rate, a general air of high civilization – luxuries for all and a total absence of slums, poverty, and ugliness. They seem very happy and productive, with one of the most way-out futurist movements in the world.” – RAW interview with Michael Dare (originally in L.A. Weekly, Feb 26 – Mar 3, 1988)

Sweden seems the best example, to me, of the “Scandinavian” model, having rated highly over a long period (eg years/decades) on various economic and social well-being indicators (at the time RAW commented – some changes have occurred since then, so I’m writing about some of these things in the past tense; but it remains a stable mixed system of tech capitalism and extensive welfare benefits). Elsewhere, RAW has described this type of system as a “mixed economy”, rather than as “socialism”, presumably because it combined strong private business sectors with “humanitarianism, social conscience, equality, egalitarianism, and environmental concern” (to quote the chapter on Sweden from The Seven Cultures of Capitalism, by Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars).

Those latter “socialist” elements generally count as “externalities” to economists, but as the authors of the above book remark, that seems like jargon for values widely seen as subversive to the lean and mean competitive market struggle (“patrist” worldview) for survival and productivity. For that reason, Sweden’s long-term stability and success has apparently perplexed some of the more dogmatic neoliberal (and right-libertarian) economists.

RAW adds: “I hate to sound like a Marxist, which I’m not, but the reason you haven’t heard about Scandinavian Socialism is because the media of this country is controlled by rich people who are scared shitless of socialism. They want Americans to think there’s only one type of socialism, Soviet Communism, which is the kind of place where dissident scientists get thrown in lunatic asylums… The Scandinavians reward their poets and they don’t put anyone in jail for dissident political opinions.”

The Scandinavian “capitalist” and “socialist” aspects co-exist(ed) relatively smoothly and successfully to a large degree because of cultural/historical factors which meant different flavours of “capitalism” (compared to the US model) to begin with, according to Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars. “Sweden’s egalitarianism originates among its yeoman farmers and the absence of feudalism in its history.” Swedish corporations – many of them family-owned – typically saw themselves as having a society-nurturing role, resulting from a history in which small towns grew up around factories in the countryside, paying the priest and schoolmaster, etc. “Sweden’s powerful social democratic welfare state puts her on the ‘soft’ edge of capitalism.” But with few nationalised industries, it doesn’t meet usual definitions of a socialist state. Still, it’s long been a high-tax economy – which might interest those who regard Wilson as dogmatically anti-tax, rigidly anti-government.

Maggie Thatcher & Ayn Rand

I’m old enough to remember life in Britain before the Thatcherite “neoliberal” revolution, when welfare, the NHS, British Rail and other “socialist” elements seemed less under attack by conservative ideologues (full student grant for students with hard-up parents like myself – no student debt! And dole in the summer holidays, no strings attached!). Interesting to compare this with the Scandinavian version, as reported by a few friends, same age-group as me, from those nations.

Talking of Margaret Thatcher and “neoliberalism”, it seems worth repeating here the “excluded middle” quote from RAW, above. Recall that he meant economic alternatives to “the hackneyed debate between monopoly Capitalism and totalitarian Socialism”. (Thatcher’s slogan, “There is no alternative”, expressed her view that no viable alternative to capitalism existed in her fight against socialism/communism).

So, where does “little l” libertarianism lie in all this? The Thatcherites, both then and now, tend(ed) to think of themselves as libertarian, although they seem(ed) very authoritarian on legislation outlawing certain forms of protest and dissent – and they ended up closing down many of the public freedoms that the less well-off depended on. It amused me to see recently (following some rioting by small far-right gangs in the UK) that most of the examples of the alleged “new Communist Police State Britain under Starmer”, posted by Elon Musk and his followers, consisted of prosecutions under laws created by previous Conservative governments following in the Iron Lady’s draconian footsteps.

What did Maggie Thatcher have in common with Ayn Rand? According to RAW, they both had a combination of “dogma and resolution” – of the kind he disliked. (In Trajectories #15, Bob commented on Ayn Rand: “She had no common sense whatsoever. She did have dogma and resolution. I hate people with dogma and resolution. They scare me.”)

Ayn Rand and Thatcher also had in common a set of economic premises rooted in a certain moral outlook – eg a view of economic inequality as not just acceptable but necessary (in contrast with, say, Adam Smith’s view). A view of individualism quite unlike the “Scandinavian” socially focused kind documented by Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars; and quite unlike the “advantaging all without disadvantaging any” favored by RAW and Bucky Fuller.

I don’t mean the generally valid-in-some-contexts economic model of competing individuals, in what John Lanchester describes (in How to Speak Money) as “the miraculous power of markets, their astonishing ability to match buyer and seller, to meet needs, to find prices which clear themselves of goods” – but rather the dogma, the belief in the market as having “some kind of mystical inherent ability to always be right and to self-regulate in all conditions, all weathers, all extremities…”, which marks the typical neoliberal economist, according to Lanchester.

In George Lakoff’s terms, “neoliberals sometimes mistake real reason for relativism, because real reason recognizes that there are multiple ways in which the brain sees reality”. (By “real reason” he refers to a realism informed by modern awareness of cognitive processes in shaping our reality tunnels – in contrast with an “Old Enlightenment reason” that imagines it has literal, logical, rational “truth”, which leads in turn to mistaking the map – “free market” dogma in this case – for the territory).

“Little l” libertarians

Many of the wealthy Silicon Valley “little l” libertarians have morphed recently into “big R” Republicans, at least in terms of their funding and support. The Kochs have for years pumped colossal amounts of money into the Republican cause, while spending large amounts on promoting a version of libertarianism with the same kind of general economic outlook as that of Ayn Rand or Margaret Thatcher (though it might disagree on some details, practicalities and levels of anti-gov fervor, etc. Charles Koch reportedly got heavily into some fairly extreme rightwing causes, including the John Birch Society, which has an entertaining entry in RAW’s encyclopedia of conspiracies, Everything is Under Control).

I don’t consider that economic viewpoint of right-libertarianism as having much to do with RAW’s “excluded middle” alternatives. It looks more like fairly mainstream capitalism to me – at least in the underlying (eg “patrist”-type morality, “inequality is good, necessary”, “market discipline”, etc) premises. Peter Thiel, meanwhile, goes for the monopoly version (with fascist overtones, to my reading), taking him to the far side (monopoly capitalism) of the dichotomy that RAW tried to subvert.

‘I tend to shy away from the word anarchist, because most people think it means bomb throwing. And a lot of people who consider themselves anarchists seem to think that too. But I can’t use libertarian, because the people who got their grip on that word are even less rational by my standards.’ – RAW, interview with Lance Bauscher, 22 Feb 2001

‘I very early in my life decided I didn’t believe in the capitalist system. Frederick Soddy, the physicist, said, “Economics? It should be called banditry.” I mean it’s the science of robbing and looting, organized. And on the other hand, Marxist socialism is even worse. Of course there is democratic socialism, such as you find in northern Europe, and I find a lot to admire in that, a great deal.’ – RAW, interview with Lance Bauscher, 2001

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