Was Spock an Austro-libertarian?
Are the Vulcan race, as popularized by Commander Spock of Star Trek fame, really future Austro-libertarians in disguise? Jack Maturin says the clues are there. All you have to do is examine Vulcan wisdom, via Spock's own recorded quotations, sent back to us via a cunning time capsule process and inserted into the famous TV series to help us eventually escape the thrall of the state. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (31)
And the one quote that invalidates all the others:
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
Published: December 21, 2005 8:34 AM
Not quite. "The needs of the many" -- who are ruled -- "outweigh the needs of the few" -- their rulers. QED.
Published: December 21, 2005 8:42 AM
Nice try, but I'm not buying it. The Spock quotes just aren't that specific.
Published: December 21, 2005 9:18 AM
"Kirk: What would you say the odds are on our getting out of here?
Spock: It is difficult to be precise, Captain. I should say approximately 7824.7 to one.
Kirk: Difficult to be precise? 7824 to one?
Spock: 7824.7 to one.
Kirk: That's a pretty close approximation.
Spock: I endeavour to be accurate.
Kirk: You do quite well.
Errand of Mercy "
This line tends to suggest to me that Spock would be more comfortable in a centrally planned society running along the fully predictable Newtonian rules rather than the the current Chaos Theory inherent in leaving things to the market. In this he is a complete child of his times - the early 1960s.
I'm not sure that trusting yourself to gravitic wave engines & wax ears are both great ideas since such engines have not been fully tested. The ears on the other hand apparently have a very positive sexual effect on women which makes them a very good idea.
Published: December 21, 2005 9:56 AM
why were the vulcans "serving" the federation then, which was - as we know - a future socialist state construct?
Published: December 21, 2005 10:06 AM
Quote from Mises:
The anarchists overlook the undeniable fact that some people are either too narrow-minded or too weak to adjust themselves spontaneously to the conditions of social life. Even if we admit that every sane adult is endowed with the faculty of realizing the good of social cooperation and of acting accordingly, there still remains the problem of the infants, the aged, and the insane. We may agree that he who acts antisocially should be considered mentally sick and in need of care. But as long as not all are cured, and as long as there are infants and the senile, some provision must be taken lest they jeopardize society. An anarchistic society would be exposed to the mercy of every individual. Society cannot exist if the majority is not ready to hinder, by the application or threat of violent action, minorities from destroying the social order. This power is vested in the state or government.
Human Action, Chapter VIII. Human Society
Perhaps we could summarize that into one line?
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few
It would seem then that the Vulcans are more Misesian, on the ethical utilitarian front, than they are Hoppeian. But I'm sure if they had had access to Professor Hoppe's writings, when they started their 1966 time capsule insert process, they would have altered their opinions accordingly. Tricky thing, time travel.
Published: December 21, 2005 10:12 AM
The Austro-Libertarian movement had clearly been quashed sometime between the 23rd and 24th centuries. To wit:
PICARD:People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of "things"…We have grown out of our infancy.
RALPH:You've got it wrong. It's never been about "possessions" - it's about power…To control your life, your destiny.
PICARD: That kind of control is an illusion.
"The Neutral Zone"
Picard certinaly has no respect for human action or the belief that freedom yields a greater sense of certinaty/security. In a different episode he denigrates "profit." Of course, his comments are intellectually dishonest--they haven't outgrown the quest for profit, they are just REALLY good at it--almost infinite productivity through the ability to transform matter. Now perhaps the Vulcans were just biding their time at this point, but that seems unlikely since they continued to readily submit to the socialist Terran state despite their superior intellect and abilities. Of course, the real problem may have been the willingness of humans to take time out of a productive day to analyze the application of Austrian economics to Star Trek while their socialist brethren are actively working to enslave them!!!
Published: December 21, 2005 10:40 AM
Mr. Maturin, there's no question that Mises was a minarchist, as was Ayn Rand. It is my opinion that this is true of both because of their exposure to "bomb throwing anarchists".
Even though both of their philosophies directly contradict the essence of "minarchy", that government can remain limited and in fact is required in the first place.
Mises makes a very interesting assertion that "government is mankinds greatest invention", because it attempts to remove coercion from the equation of human interaction by vesting in a single entity a monopoly on coercive force.
Too bad it doesn't work. I think Vulcans would be anarchists, in fact, because their adherence to logic would not allow them to ignore government's failures because of an emotional attachment to what might be if only it worked this time.
Published: December 21, 2005 10:42 AM
Hi Neil,
Mises quote:
Acting man uses knowledge provided by the natural sciences for the elaboration of technology...The quantification of the natural sciences made technology quantitative. Modern technology is essentially the applied art of quantitative prediction of the outcome of possible action. One calculates with a reasonable degree of precision the outcome of planned actions, and one calculates in order to arrange an action in such a way that a definite result emerges.
Human Action, XI. VALUATION WITHOUT CALCULATION
I think Commander Spock's accuracy with figures demonstrates that he is as familiar with the valuation problems outlined in Socialism, as he is with the philosophy behind Human Action. He is one heck of an Acting Man!
On second thoughts, I could come to agree with you about the ears. They've certainly done Orlando Bloom the power of good.
Hi benny,
why were the vulcans "serving" the federation then
Maybe he was trying to work out, from first hand experience, why Mises served the Austrian Army as an artillery officer for three years? That's certainly a question which has puzzled me. Perhaps I'll find the answer in Israel Kirzner's Ludwig von Mises. Right, gotta go make some money. Time preferences wait for no man.
Published: December 21, 2005 10:51 AM
Curt -- There is no structure by which power will remain limited without the threat and just application of force against the powerful by a well-informed and vigorous majority -- and that is true of anarchic theory as well. Libertarian anarchy isn't a solution at all -- it suffers from the same defects as it HAS to rely on the sense of justice built into every man which makes the majority. Ultimately, libertarians should argue and act for the limitation of government, and dissolve government and put in place another only IF it can be assured that would be a better state of affairs.
Published: December 21, 2005 10:55 AM
Spock lived in a money free environment where consumer goods came out of a machine in the wall.
Published: December 21, 2005 12:29 PM
"Spock lived in a money free environment..."
For a humorous and serious take on the supposedly "money-less" environment of Star Trek, I refer you to:
http://www.fee.org/pdf/the-freeman/goldsmith1204.pdf
Published: December 21, 2005 1:44 PM
Mr. Bradley, "Ultimately" has little to do with it. The benefits of private efforts over government efforts is well known in every endeavor that is not tyrannical in nature. It is only the clinging to emotional reactions that leaves the state in existence at all.
For instance, if actual hazard were considered instead of emotion, there would be no one calling for gun prohibition. Those same people might choose never to get in a car, however.
Libertarians argue for the replacement of government waste with private success. If that argument today has the scope of a few things, tomorrow some more, you can call that arguing for "limited government" if you want to, just don't tell me that is what _I_ have to do.
The reason that Libertarians can be ridiculed is that some "libertarians" compromise and talk about there being need for some government, which conflicts with the primary message which is private efforts turn out better than government ones. You cannot have both, and that contradiction is the fulcrum used to marginalise the Libertarian message.
Published: December 21, 2005 2:16 PM
If the details matter, then Jim needs to be a little less careless in criticizing libertarianism. Another point of AC that Jim overlooks is that there are indeed natural forces at work, buttressed by economics, that limit the ability to do evil and reinforce the values of good and justice.
Government might be considered an argument for free will because it largely consists of people consciously choosing to ignore their own human nature and the nature of the reality in which we live.
Published: December 21, 2005 3:29 PM
Curt and Larry -- You've yet to answer the objection which stands more powerfully the longer you evade it. Please explain how property rights - which are necessarily protected by the threat and execution of violence - would be enforced in a libertarian society -- would all people be the defenders of whom they wish? And if what we have now is slouching toward totalitarianism, how much more would that happen in a "libertarian" society which has no codified balance of power in the structure of law?
Libertarians are so upset with the majority, but somehow libertarian society (which must rely on the sense of justice in action of the majority of people) is just going to work itself out ...
Published: December 21, 2005 4:14 PM
WHOA WHOA WHOA.
The Federation is NOT necessarily a socialist construct and it is composed of many races who no doubt have differing ideas about how the Federation should function. We know that Humans, Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians do widely differ, for instance.
In "Errand of Mercy," the Klingons accused the Federation of engaging in trade wars with sanctions. Sound kind of like America? The Vulcans could indeed be a moderating influence on the humans here. They probably would not favor such sanctions.
Also, the fact that they don't use "money." Maybe the word money simply refers to FIAT currency which is then discredited. They use credits, something which more closely corresponds to some kind of standard (platinum? quasar olivium?)? Come on folks.
Let's not be so hasty to judgment.
Surely Star Trek offers far more for the Austro-Libertarians than does Star Wars, although unfortunately, the Mises Institute has not seen fit to show this.
This was a good start.
Published: December 21, 2005 4:15 PM
I don't have the time for a long essay. If you haven't read Robert Murphy, David Friedman, Bruce Benson, and others who have outlined an AC-type system, I would be very surprised.
Thus, your argument is not that it hasn't been described, but that the description doesn't satisfy you. That may be a fair argument on your part--saying it hasn't been described isn't.
Published: December 21, 2005 4:25 PM
Mr. Bradley, your "yet to answer the objection which stands more powerfully the longer you evade it" wears thin. Asking the same question with different words, over and over, each time declaring that it has not been answered, simply makes it less and less likely anyone has the energy to answer it again this time.
If you don't find the arguments of Murphy &etc. convincing, that's certainly your prerogative. Saying it is "yet to be answered" is simply being ignorant.
Published: December 21, 2005 6:43 PM
Mr. Waugh, Star Wars certainly stands as an excellent "bad example" of the tendency for power, once collected, to grow until faced with armed force.
Published: December 21, 2005 6:44 PM
some thoughts:
1.) The majority of the Star Trek universe has been portrayed through Starfleet, a military organization in the tradition of the British Royal Navy. Personally, since Deep Space Nine (and "Section 31" showing that Starfleet isn't all-good almost-perfect), I've thought that a spin-off show with an independent crew skeptical of Starfleet and often flouting its idealism (prime-directive, no cloaking device, no genetic enhancement of humanoids, seemingly no counter-assimilation of Borg technology, etc.) would make for a more entertaining show. Then Firefly aired and I've settled for that as "good enough", at least given the current marketplace.
2.) The debate of "what would anarcho-capitalism look like?" ultimately always seems a bit queer to me. In no probable circumstances can I imagine all military regimes of the world to say "ok, this is a stupid idea" and announce their dissolution. Governments evolved into existence and they will evolve out of existence. How, when, and why will emerge from the human actions of all of us. The organizations, communications networks, and popular philosophies which allow a post-government world (or solar system) to thrive will likewise evolve from those human actions. We don't have to know now what exactly it will eventually look like.
Published: December 21, 2005 8:43 PM
Seems I've a lot of these quotes before from an author called Lao Tzu. Do most libertarians have a Taoist philosophy?
Published: December 22, 2005 1:49 AM
The noninterference (prime) directive is the most libertarian doctrine in Star Trek IMO. It is a non-initiation-of-force principle, at least for less-developed worlds.
The Chalnoth are anarchists:
As for Spock, don't forget cowboy diplomacy:
Published: December 22, 2005 3:03 AM
The noninterference (prime) directive is the most libertarian doctrine in Star Trek IMO. It is a non-initiation-of-force principle, at least for less-developed worlds.
The definition of "force" here is very soft. "Interference" means the isolation -- active prevention of any 3rd party from contacting -- any "pre-warp" civilization discovered in Federation-claimed territory.
Rather, at a government-level it seems to be a kind of investment policy w/r/t to biological and technological diversity; something of an inverse-implemented dependency theory.
It assumes that, all morality aside, what's most valuable to the Federation is the culmination of that civilizations' diversity should they finally achieve warp-drive technology (and thus easily discover the Federation themselves). In a kind of "oh, we always thought our plasma coils had to work according to this theory, but you've done it in this other way that avoids failure X in situation Y". In other words, that in the mad-dash to "catch up" a civilization would just "Westernize" so to speak.
There's some truth to that a technology and a culture cannot easily be separated. Even today we see how many businesses leverage government force to "put the genie back in the bottle" of end-users who write and customize their own software -- the "hacker" culture who created the technology.
Published: December 22, 2005 10:18 AM
Well, laying aside all the debate on the jots and tittles of exactly HOW Austrian the Vulcans are, I'd like to say that this premise explains a lot to me. Mr. Spock was my hero when I was a kid (I gradually lost interest in the later Star Trek series(es) for some of the same reasons mentioned by others above). I not only had my very own set of fake ears, but I had the haircut for awhile, and wrote down a number of his quotes to ponder (come on, give me a break, I was about 8 or 9 years old). It makes a lot of sense that I somehow absorbed some of his philosophy when younger and it helped steer me toward Austro Libertarianism when I grew up and put the ears away. Well, at least until parties a few years ago celebrating the arrival of Lord of the Rings movies, when they doubled for making me look like a tree-hugging elf.
Published: December 22, 2005 11:47 AM
It would seem that Mr. Lear missed the article on the Zen of Tao, as it were, a few weeks ago.
Mr. Croft, Spock is the one that made science sound like it was more fun than public school ever could make it. The same goes for Scotty, who embodied the enthusiasm for a well functioning system. The two together always did better, especially when they disagreed.
Imagine my surprise when recently I saw a re-run of David Caridine's _Kung Foo_ and realized how deeply the philosophies of Master Po and Master Chang had effected my outlook on life.
One of the missing elements in common discourse are those elements of television, the "great wasteland", that were done *well*.
Published: December 22, 2005 1:07 PM
Could anything make us look more like a pack of dorky white guys than trying to parse libertarian ideology from the scriptures of Star Trek episodes?
- Josh
Published: December 22, 2005 4:09 PM
Come on Wild Pegasus, there is always the FINAL frontier; that is, parsing libertarian ideology from the scriptures of Lord of the Rings. We've nearly got into it a couple of times, but so far we're managing to just about avoid it.
Published: December 22, 2005 4:51 PM
I always thought The Lord of the Rings was a Hoppean monarchy myself. At least everyone has the right skin color.
Published: December 27, 2005 8:09 PM
Brilliant article well worth reading and though about fisctional characters probably more relevant to economic thought than the jargon fed to us by government and heads of Central banks.
Well done.
Published: December 28, 2005 4:58 AM
I don't buy it. I see your point, but those few quotes certainly don't by themselves prove Spock supported absolute market capitalism or abolishing government or other commonly-help libertarian beliefs.
I think many quotes and actions would probably go the other way to:
-"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"
-"It is not logical to drive a species to extinction." From the Star Trek IV the Voyage Home, when humanity's (capitalist) actions, apparently whaling and pollution, were driving whales to extinction. Of course, this isn't a statement a libertarian couldn't agree with, but libertarians support the free market and oppose regulation no matter the cost (just going by all the blogs I've read).
I believe he gave other statements like that not on whaling of course but similar, which would indicate he supported collection action when necessary.
-Not to mention Vulcan did have a government, and Spock willingly worked for the largest government in human history, the Federation. If he sounded like most libertarians he would be constantly complaining of big government and how the free market would provide a better solution. He was big on quoting star fleet regulations, to kirk's annoyance at times
-Libertarians don't like science when it doesn't agree with them. While libertarians often tend to promote themselves as followers of reason (communists did too), they won't accept science that they don't like the implications of. Such as global warming and nearly any issue where unrestrained capitalism has caused environmental harm. Spock would never disregard a fact he didn't personally like, and of course was a Science officer.
Overall with all due respect I think you read too much into those quotes, as not one of them in any way prove Spock was a libertarian (as people today use the term), and easily could mean other things. So Vulcans don't like warmongering, big deal, that's far from a libertarian-only idea. Some of your quotes in fact would go the other way, if anything such as the needs of the many quote, and "those who receive the rewards are totally separated from those who shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership — The Cloud Minders."
Published: May 20, 2007 11:25 PM
I don't buy it. I see your point, but those few quotes certainly don't by themselves prove Spock supported absolute market capitalism or abolishing government or other commonly-help libertarian beliefs.
I think many quotes and actions would probably go the other way to:
-"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"
-"It is not logical to drive a species to extinction." From the Star Trek IV the Voyage Home, when humanity's (capitalist) actions, apparently whaling and pollution, were driving whales to extinction. Of course, this isn't a statement a libertarian couldn't agree with, but libertarians support the free market and oppose regulation no matter the cost (just going by all the blogs I've read).
I believe he gave other statements like that not on whaling of course but similar, which would indicate he supported collection action when necessary.
-Not to mention Vulcan did have a government, and Spock willingly worked for the largest government in human history, the Federation. If he sounded like most libertarians he would be constantly complaining of big government and how the free market would provide a better solution. He was big on quoting star fleet regulations, to kirk's annoyance at times
-Libertarians don't like science when it doesn't agree with them. While libertarians often tend to promote themselves as followers of reason (communists did too), they won't accept science that they don't like the implications of. Such as global warming and nearly any issue where unrestrained capitalism has caused environmental harm. Spock would never disregard a fact he didn't personally like, and of course was a Science officer.
Overall with all due respect I think you read too much into those quotes, as not one of them in any way prove Spock was a libertarian (as people today use the term), and easily could mean other things. So Vulcans don't like warmongering, big deal, that's far from a libertarian-only idea. Some of your quotes in fact would go the other way, if anything such as the needs of the many quote, and "those who receive the rewards are totally separated from those who shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership — The Cloud Minders."
Published: May 20, 2007 11:25 PM