Libertarian Class Theory

Wally Conger (http://wconger.blogspot.com/2005/10/agorism-contra-marxism-part-6.html posts about the need for a libertarian class theory. One idea has been to define classes along the dimension of net benefit from the state. In one class, we place folks who benefit from the state; in the other, those of us who have to pay for the state. I am fairly certain that this device would be useful for many kinds of analyses, possibly to demonstrate a connection between the receipt of state largesse and support for the state. In other cases, the device may obscure more than it reveals as we find schoolteachers classed with Halliburton executives, trash collectors classed with legislators.

One of the most important things to remember in constructing a libertarian class theory is that the classes are devices and that they do not necessarily reflect any actual social phenomena. It is easy when thinking in terms of classes to fall into the trap of believing that classes actually exist outside of your model. We tend to reify concepts such as the “working class”, the “underclass”, the “middle class”, the “parasite class”, etc. In fact, there are just individuals who may, when it is convenient for some analytical purpose, be aggregated along one or more dimensions. For some purposes, it may be useful to think of “ice cream eaters” as a class distinct from “frozen yoghurt eaters”, but this does not mean that there is or ever will be an organized collective entity comprised of members of either posited class.

Socioeconomic classes are especially susceptible to reification because members of the class can appear similar on so many dimensions, e.g. working exurban men who enjoy NASCAR and who don’t like to spend too much time with their wives. The predictive power of the class designation is such that one begins to feel that it tracks a subspecies of human beings when all it really does is account imperfectly for existential similarities among individuals who react predictably to similar events taking place within their similarly limited spheres of life.

What does this admonition add to the quest for a meaningful libertarian class theory? I hope that there will be a multiplicity of libertarian class theories and that the intelligentsia will not get bogged down in the quest for a single “correct” theory of class. It may be useful to construct classes along any number of dimensions to make different points. In many ways, Marxism was hampered by a dogmatic attachment to particular kinds of class analyses. Moreover, I hope that this admonition will free the intelligentsia to consider class theories that seem counterintuitive. Remembering that the classes are heuristic devices and not necessarily descriptive of the world should facilitate thinking about classes in less obvious ways. The aforementioned “tax-eater versus tax-payer” model is somewhat counterintuitive, but it may well turn out to be quite robust.