Fabian Libertarianism
100 Years to Freedom
by
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Superorganisms exist. They consist of individual human beings. Superorganisms have lives separate from the individual human beings of which they are composed. Superorganisms are epiphenomena of human social groups. Leviathan, as we will see, is a deadly enemy. Superorganisms are groups of human beings. Like all living beings, superorganisms seek to live. Human beings seek to live, but they seek the good life through the creation of lasting values and through procreation, children. Since superorganisms are eternal, they do not need to procreate in order to continue their existence. They seek only more life. Superorganisms do not seek the good life. The good life for human beings is a flourishing life. In the Fellowship of Reason® (a Georgia non-profit moral community), the flourishing life is expressed by the Greek term Eudaimonia, or well-being-ism. Just as a pecan tree flourishes or not, so too a human being flourishes or not. A flourishing pecan tree is large, well-formed, verdant green in season, and productive of sweet, savory nuts. A non-flourishing pecan tree is puny, malformed, diseased, and barren. A flourishing human being is well-formed, robustly healthy, happy in her work and family with a spouse and healthy children. A non-flourishing human being is alone, diseased, emaciated, shivering next to an urban heating vent barely covered by an old newspaper. A human being seeks to flourish because she is self-conscious and desires the mental condition we call happiness. Morality and virtue mean nothing to Leviathan. Leviathan is not self-conscious. Leviathan is like poison ivy that moves in response to stimuli from the environment. Good movements are those which allow the vine to live and grow. Bad movements are those that result in injury and death. Poison ivy, like Leviathan, has no goal other than life and more life. Because Leviathan does not seek the good life, Leviathan does not need morality. Leviathan is amoral. Leviathan is inimical to human morality. Because Leviathan is composed of and served by human beings, the human beings must be persuaded that they are enabling and serving a good cause, a cause that advances the good life, a cause that is moral. Therefore, Leviathan has a cover story, a rationale for its existence. The Veteran’s Affairs exists “to serve the needs of veterans and their families”. The National Education Associate exists “to advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world”. General Electric exists to imagine, build, solve, and lead. Leviathan’s reason for being (as opposed to its rationale) is life and more life, without regard to morality. Our goal is to explain how it is that so many societal problems are intractable. For example, how is it that Thomas Edison’s great invention, the incandescent light bulb, is outlawed in America? How is that veterans beloved of Americans are denied treatment by the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs unto death? The heretofore undiscovered answer is: superorganisms having ultimate power over us. The concept of independent corporate existence is easy. Consider, for example, the Fellowship of Reason® (FOR), a Georgia non-profit corporation interested in ethical living and continuing adult education, is one of many moral communities. FOR has By-laws, acts through a board of trustees, and is non-political. No single member, not even the president can speak for the corporation. Only the board of trustees, as a board, acting by majority vote speaks for the corporation. FOR is a different entity from its individual members, defined by its By-laws and activity through its board of trustees. Simple. Size matters. When an organization reaches a certain size, an epiphenomenon occurs. A superorganism comes into existence. By the end of this chapter, we will see that our society is controlled by a number of interacting superorganisms whose existence, heretofore unknown, is a threat to human morality. Science fiction anticipates that artificial intelligence will be deadly for the existence of human beings. However, human morality is already significantly compromised by Leviathan. Leviathan lives forever. General Electric was founded in 1892 by Thomas Edison. Now we have the VA. The National Education Associate was founded in 1857. These superorganisms will never die as long as America exists. Superorganisms are eternal. An individual might live for seventy years. The active adult portion of a human life endures for fifty years, if we are lucky. Our political lives, if existing at all, might last for a few years of vain tilting at windmills. Immortal Leviathan is completely disinterested in the isolated human beings. The individual’s political life span is infinitesimal compared to the eternal life of Leviathan. The individual human being to Leviathan is like an ant to a man. A corollary to its immortal life is the scope of Leviathan’s action. Leviathan acts over decades and centuries. Yeoman farmers (small family farmers who work their own land) act over decades, but these days few Americans are yeoman farmers. In the Introduction, we told the story of the seventy-year-old French tree farmer planting pecan trees not expected to reach full nut production for ten years. The yeoman farmer thinks of his descendants who will inherit the family farm. City folk, the majority of us, act not over a range of decades and certainly not with centuries in mind. Some city folk save for retirement (a decades-long project), but what else do we do that involves acting toward a goal one or several decades hence? Children come to mind. We have our children for at least 20 years while they mature. Some parents plan for those years, especially for college. Responsible parents cannot do otherwise. How can we city folk hope to act against Leviathan who plans for decades and centuries, when we city folk merely plan for the weekend? Individuals, especially live-for-the-moment city folk, are no match for immortal Leviathan. City folk are not even aware of the enemy. People are blind to immortal Leviathan who rules us.
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About the Book
The goal of this book is to persuade the reader that there is something very wrong in the political world. The cause of the political malfunction is what we shall call Leviathan. Learn why so many societal problems are intractable. For example, how is it that Thomas Edison’s great invention, the incandescent lightbulb, is outlawed in America? How is that veterans beloved of Americans are denied treatment by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) unto death? How is it that bad teachers are kept on indefinitely by a school system at full pay in isolated temporary reassignment centers (“rubber rooms” in New York City)? The heretofore undiscovered answer is: superorganisms having ultimate power over us. Superorganisms exist. They consist of individual human beings. Superorganisms have lives separate from the individual human beings of which they are composed. Superorganisms are epiphenomena of human social groups. Examples of superorganisms include government bureaucracies like the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, unions like the National Education Association, and corporations like General Electric. In this book, the name Leviathan is given to these superorganisms. Leviathan, as we will see, is a deadly enemy. We have a plan to defeat Leviathan, but because Leviathan is virtually immortal, in control of government education, itself a sociopath, and served, in part, by sociopaths, our road is long and difficult. We anticipate a one-hundred-years struggle. There is hope. Read this book to learn the plan. Join our fight. Help restore American freedom for our children and grandchildren.
About the Author
Martin Cowen has been a Libertarian for forty-four years. Martin attended the first Georgia Libertarian Party convention in 1972 during his first year at the University of Georgia Law School. He has voted the straight Libertarian Party ticket, when available, since then. In 1998, Martin founded the Fellowship of Reason, a Georgia a nonprofit organization, a reason-based moral community. Members of the Fellowship of Reason study ethics and engage in continuing adult education in the classics, including philosophy, history, literature, and culture. Having retired after forty years from the practice of law in December 2015, Martin turns his attention to applying the results of his legal, ethical, philosophical, historical, literate, and cultural studies. The first result is Martin’s second book, Fabian Libertarianism: 100 Years to Freedom. During Martin’s classical studies, he read and taught Plutarch’s Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans, including the Life of Fabius Maximus. Consul Fabius Maximus successfully lead the defense of the Roman Republic contra the invading Carthaginian general Hannibal by avoiding direct battle and by employing delaying tactics. Recognizing that the British Socialist think tank, the Fabian Society, bears the name of the famous Fabius Maximus, Martin took a look at the history of the Fabian Society and realized that since their founding in the late nineteenth century, the Socialists have achieved all their goals! Martin is determined to turn the Fabian tactics against the victorious Socialists. Martin realizes that the recovery of American Freedom will take as long as it took to lose it, over the 130 years, thus the subtitle of Martin’s book: 100 Years to Freedom. Martin Cowen is pleased that the principles of Libertarianism are known to every American citizen with an interest in politics. He is disappointed that the Libertarian Party has elected few Libertarian candidates to public office. Martin intends to devote the next twenty years of his life working as a volunteer for the Libertarian Party with the goal of helping the Libertarian Party elect a new generation of young Libertarian candidates to public office.