This guest essay by Dr Edward W. Younkins
is a review of Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s book “Total Freedom”, which was
published 25 years ago. The epigraph is from page 354 of that book.
Ed Younkins’s review was previously published in 2001 in “Le Québécois Libre”.
There are two reasons why it is appropriate
for it to be re-published now.
First,“Total Freedom” deserves more attention,
and the 25th anniversary of its publication is a particularly appropriate
time for that to occur.
Second, in the light of declining economic and personal freedom in many parts of the world, the defense of liberty has become more urgent than it was 25 years ago. Ian Vásquez and his colleagues responsible for measurement of human freedom for Cato and the Fraser Institute have noted that on a world-wide basis, and using a population weighted comparison, a high point for freedom occurred in 2005–2007, followed by a steady decline through 2019, and a precipitous descent in 2020 through 2021 associated with government responses to the Covid virus (“The Human Freedom Index 2024, pp. 21-25). The latest data suggest although some recovery has occurred since, human freedom remains lower than in the year 2000.
Younkins ended his review by noting that
he was “looking forward to seeing what Sciabarra will offer us next that will
contribute toward the development of a comprehensive defense of freedom.” Chris
Sciabarra has continued to make important contributions in this field even
though illness has somewhat constrained his efforts.
Here is Ed Younkins’s review of:
Sciabarra, Chris Matthew, Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (Pennsylvania State University Press: 2000).
The necessity of context
Sciabarra is convinced that a successful libertarian
project must stress the necessity of context – the totality of systemic and
dynamic connections among social problems. More specifically, the libertarian
ideal cannot be isolated from the context upon which it depends and freedom
cannot be defended successfully when separated from its broader requisite
conditions. The author proposes in Total Freedom a
metatheoretical foundation upon which to construct a comprehensive libertarian
social theory. Rather than making a convincing argument for liberty, he offers
a means for structuring the methodology of social inquiry. The book is about
how a context-sensitive methodology can be used to defend freedom. In order to
think about freedom, people need to grasp the totality of its prerequisites and
implications. Emphasizing the indivisible unity of theory and practice,
Sciabarra says that any effort to understand or change society requires an
analysis of its many related aspects.
Sciabarra explains that dialectics emphasizes the
centrality of context in the intertemporal analysis of systems. It is a
thinking style that stresses the contextual analysis of systems across time.
Dialectics may be viewed as a method of analysis, a mode of inquiry, or a type
of meta-methodological orientation or set of assumptions about how we approach
the object of our study. Dialectics is an approach to thinking that attempts to
grasp the full context of a philosophy or social problem. Dialectical thinking
endeavors to understand the whole through differential vantage points and
levels of generality and by a systemic and dynamic extension of analytical
units.
The author emphasizes that dialectical thinking
necessitates that we do not engage in context dropping, but instead make every
possible effort to see interconnections between seemingly disparate branches of
knowledge. Such an approach compels scholars to investigate empirically the
potential connections between various spheres in an effort to attain integrated
knowledge of the full context. Since people are not omniscient, understanding a
complex world thoroughly requires an on-going investigation of its many
interrelated facets from shifting vantage points.
Down to earth dialectics
As a methodological orientation, dialectics has been
employed in the analysis of systems of argumentation, philosophy, ethics,
linguistics, history, culture, psychology, social theory, political economy,
etc. One of Sciabarra's goals is to capture the essence of the many dialectical
approaches that have appeared throughout intellectual history. He argues that
in its origins dialectics is not an especially Hegelian or Marxian tradition,
but rather in its inception it is firmly Aristotelian.
Sciabarra explains that, although the pre-Socratics
and Plato were the earliest practitioners of dialectics, it was Aristotle, the
true father (or fountainhead) of dialectical inquiry, who first articulated its
theoretical principles and techniques. Plato had connected dialectics to an
idealist ontology that entailed the search for comprehensive transcendent
truth. Plato's unrealistic epistemological standard was for human beings to
somehow attain a synoptic perspective on the whole society.
Aristotle brought the dialectic down to earth by
severing its principles from their Platonic-idealist formulation. The
Aristotelian idea of dialectics eliminates cosmology from philosophy and relies
on a minimalist metaphysics that states that existence is what it is, that
consciousness is our means for understanding it, and that everything that
exists is part of one reality. The history of dialectics is filled with battles
between the synoptic Platonic idealist conception and the contextual
Aristotelian realist understanding. As a dialectical reality, Sciabarra tells
us that we should rightfully criticize those who form dialectical abstractions
with no regard for their relationship to the facts of reality.
Sciabarra explains that Aristotle advocates shifting
our viewpoints on any object of study in order to illuminate different aspects
of it. In this way, Aristotle keeps the Platonic predilection for organic
unity, but acknowledges the central importance of context. Aristotle's
principles of inquiry call for us to constantly shift our perspective on any
object of study. Each point of view provides a different context of meaning. It
is by piecing together the various perspectives that a person can gain a comprehensive
understanding of the full context of the object.
Like Aristotle, the Medieval Scholastics applied
dialectical principles to the argumentative arts. Sciabarra observes that they
brought dialectics to the consideration of Biblical texts and thus began the
centuries-long journey toward the secularization of the human mind because they
were brave enough to subject the scriptures to analysis, something that was
disapproved of for centuries before.
Sciabarra argues that Hegel's conception of the
dialectic harks back to the Ancient Greek ideal of organic unity and to the
Platonic penchant for the divine. In turn, Marx anchored dialectics to
investigations of the real world. However, Marx's vision presumed god-like
planning and control of many nuances, tacit practices, and unintended
consequences of social action. He also presumed a total grasp of history and
often attempted to study the present as if from an imagined future. When
Marxists suggest that history can lead to a victory over human ignorance, they
are implying privileged access to total knowledge of future social conditions.
This is inherently utopian and undialectical since it is unbounded by the
context that exists and is based on a « synoptic delusion, » a
belief that one can live in a world in which every action produces consistent
and predictable outcomes.
The art of context keeping
If dialectics is the art of context keeping,
then historical materialism proposes a theory of history that places the
theoretician outside the context of the human condition. The problem occurs
when Marx steps into the future to evaluate the present. He assumes the
information needed by future planners will be available despite the fact that
these planners will have destroyed the context (i.e., the price system), which
permits such information to be generated and socially traded. By holding this
incorrect assumption, Marx is placing himself outside the historical process
that he analyzes. Sciabarra observes that it is as though Marx is permitting
himself privileged access to information about a future that is ontologically
and epistemologically impossible. Such a Utopian way of viewing the world is
essentially an a-contextual, a-historical search for human ideals with no
understanding of the limits or nature of reason. It is as if people can step
outside the bounds of culture and society to re-create the world.
Sciabarra goes on to explore the manifestations of
dialectics among those from the liberal tradition including Herbert Spencer,
Carl Menger, Mises, Hayek, Rand, and especially Murray Rothbard. The author's
goal here is to show how classical liberal and modern libertarian approaches
embody conflicting orientations. He also describes how these thinkers have been
richer, more complex, and more context-sensitive than their critics have been
willing to acknowledge. Total Freedom documents how a
contextual-dialectical approach informed many of the classical liberal, and
libertarian thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
A large portion of the second half of Sciabarra's work
involves a comprehensive case study of the writings of Murray Rothbard, one of
the major libertarian thinkers of the 20th century. Sciabarra attempts to
identify the dialectical and undialectical aspects of Rothbard's wide-ranging
anarcho-capitalist analytical model. Rothbard's work is used to expose and
analyze the dialectical strengths and nondialectical weaknesses that are
typical in modern libertarian social theory.
Sciabarra observes that Rothbard, for most of his
life, believed that libertarianism did not require a theory of culture.
Rothbard appeared to think that his axiom of non-aggression could resolve
social and political problems by itself. Like many other libertarians, he
simply dropped the larger context which freedom requires in order to flourish
and stressed libertarian goals without considering the problem of meeting them.
He insisted that libertarianism was a political philosophy that could
accommodate any culture. For example, Rothbard believed that men could simply
use their reason to develop a permanently fixed Libertarian Law Code in
accordance with anarcho-capitalist principles.
Sciabarra questions the efficacy of such an imposition
because it does not take into account the philosophical, cultural, and
historical context upon which libertarian principles depend. The acceptance of
a Libertarian Law Code in the real world would require a deeper understanding
of personal and cultural factors. Rothbard had abstracted a single principle of
non-aggression and created a dualistic tension between theory and reality by
declaring that state institutions are at odds with human nature. This led
Rothbard to universalize the market as a means of destroying the
state.
Sciabarra points out that later Rothbard realized that
proponents of a free society needed a fully articulated theory of culture,
since some cultures foster, while others threaten, a free society. Rothbard's
later greater dialectical sensibility is exhibited in his theory of structural
crisis which was simultaneously historical, political, economic, and
sociological and in the foundations of his non-Marxist theory of class
struggle.
In need of an effective strategy
Toward the end of his book, Sciabarra briefly surveys
the growing dialectical trend among libertarians such as Peter Boettke, Douglas
Den Uyl, Don Lavoie, Douglas Rasmussen, Mario Rizzo, and others. Sciabarra is
convinced that libertarianism as a social theory is valuable and offers a valid
perspective on the nature of the crisis in modern society and that voluntary
social relations, with all their preconditions and effects, are morally and
consequentially preferable to the status quo and to statism in all its
varieties. However, he does not believe that libertarian theorists have
presented the best formulations and arguments in the context of social
conditions that exist. Freedom cannot be defended successfully when severed
from its broader requisite conditions. Libertarians must pay greater attention
to the broader context within which their goals and values can be realized.
Sciabarra's message is that libertarians need an
effective strategy that recognizes the dynamic interrelationships between the
personal, political, historical, psychological, ethical, cultural, economic,
etc., if they are to be successful in their quest for a free society. He
explains that attempts to define and defend a non-aggression axiom in the
absence of a broader philosophical and cultural context are doomed to fail.
Libertarians must pay greater attention to the broader context within which
their goals and values can be realized. The battle against statism is
simultaneously structural (political and economic), cultural (with implications
for education, race, sex, language, and art) and personal (with connections to
individuals' tacit moral beliefs, and psycho-epistemological processes).
The author wants people to understand both the
necessity for objective conceptual foundations for a free society and the need
for cultural pre-requisites in the battle for the free society. The fight for
freedom is multidimensional and takes place on a variety of levels with each
level influencing and having reciprocal effects on the other levels. Dialectics
require that people take into account and pay attention to all the levels and
structures that a politics of freedom depends upon. Sciabarra contends that it
is possible to look at society from different angles and on different levels of
analytical generality in order to obtain an enriched portrait of its total
form. Change must occur on many different levels and cannot be dictated from
the realm of politics – it must filter through all the various levels.
The goals of Total Freedom are to defend the
need for a dialectical libertarianism that synthesizes multiple disciplines and
to reclaim dialectics as a viable methodology for libertarian social theory.
The author accomplishes this in his well-documented, innovative, and academic treatise.
He offers libertarianism as a valid and valuable perspective that is preferable
to the status quo and to statism in all its varieties. However, Sciabarra stops
short of developing his own substantive dialectical libertarian social
theory.
His work is primarily methodological and only
articulates the view that a dialectical libertarianism is essential to the
future of both dialectics and libertarianism. He has taken the first step by
offering a metatheoretical structure for social inquiry, rather than a
comprehensive argument for liberty. Sciabarra cautions that much work needs to
be done to test the validity of various libertarian theories. I am looking
forward to seeing what Sciabarra will offer us next that will contribute toward
the development of a comprehensive defense of freedom.
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