The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographic Essay: Forrest Mcdonald, a Founding Father's Library
• Bibliographic Essay: Murray N. Rothbard, Modern Historians Confront the American Revolution
• I: Paradigms of Freedom
• Conflicting Paradigms
• Paradigms As Procrustes' Bed
• Interest and Ambition
• Thesis and Antithesis
• Freedom and Authority
• Sin and Society
• Autonomy and Authority
• Virtue and Status
• Utility and Progress
• Diversity and Equality
• II: Nonspontaneous Order
• State Vs Society
• The Therapeutic State
• Order and Elites
• Order and Virtue
• Self-perfection
• Socialism and Freedom
• Market Socialism
• Centralism Vs Decentralism
• Voluntary Servitude
• Authority and Obedience
• Social Control
• Power and Ideology
• Hegemony
• III: Spontaneous Order
• Freedom and Knowledge
• The Case For Government
• The Case Against Government
• Community Vs. State
• State and Morality
• Freedom and Creativity
• Order Without State
• IV: Individual and Social Good
• The Right to Privacy
• Autonomy and Psychiatry
• Personal Choice
• Individuals, Groups, and States
• Social Dynamics
• Social Engineering
• Individuals and Groups
• Personal Vs. Social Goods
• Individual Rationality
• Self-interest and Social Good
• Self-interest Vs. Slavery
• Art and Autonomy
• Radical Individualism
• V: Ethics, Rights, and Freedom
• Objective Values
• Natural Law
• Preambles to Freedom
• Social Sciences and Values
• Reason and Change
• Reason and Choice
• Economics and Values
• Legal Naturalism
• Justice As Restitution
• Justice As Punishment
• Rights and Contract
• Virtue In the Market
• Justice Under Capitalism
• Profits and Choice
• Social Framework and Prosperity
• Ecology and Rights
• Business' Social Ethics
• VI: Equality
• Problems With Inequality
• Equality, Power, and Values
• Unequal Income
• Equal Opportunity
• Equal Liberty
• Equality of Condition
• The Egalitarian State
• Sexual Equality
• VII: Power
• Empire, Equality, and Envy
• Imperial Presidency
• Empire and Inflation
• Watergate As a Symptom of Empire
• The Pragmatic Presidency
• “absolute Power” and Corruption
• VIII: Planning Vs. Choice
• Origins of Planning
• Bureaucratic Growth
• Prediction and Control
• Government Planning
• Government Experts
• Useless Usury Laws
• Wartime Regulation
• Government Inflation
• Neomercantilism
• Compulsory Schooling
• Planning In Nonprofit Agencies
• Private Capital and Education
• Choice and Spontaneous Order

Order without State

Wilson, Peter J.

• University of Otago Dunedin, New Zealand

“The Problem with Simple Folk.” Natural History (USA), 86 (1977): 26–32.

For an anthropologist, the Tsimihety people of Madagascar prove maddening to describe because they do not conform to the normal models that anthropology uses to classify human societies. The Tsimihety do not betray any metaphysical curiosity; they lack a coherent social or economic system; they appear to be pragmatic, utilitarian, and wary of the constraints of a systematic ordering structure.

Deeper probing, however, reveals that the Tsimihety exhibit a systematically structured social organization, but one seldom studied by anthropologists. It is a society whose members choose to live and work individualistically. Individualism, nonconformity, and freedom characterize their social mores.

The Tsmihety individualistically choose their vocations as either herdsmen or farmers. They live in one village or another, as it pleases them. They have no chiefs or kings. Each villager has an equal say in village affairs; if he dislikes the village ruler, he is free to pass on elsewhere. Such freedom of movement militates against artificially imposed status, hierarchy, or authority. Fiercely egalitarian, the Tsimihety recognize no office of authority to which they owe obedience. Each village is a voluntary union of households, and no two villages are in political alliance. Yet the Tsimihety people's lives are neither chaotic nor “anarchic.” Socially and demographically, they are prospering and multiplying.

In the face of tribal invasion, the Tsimihety flee to the mountains. If that is impossible, they treat the enemy with passive resistance and social boycott. As rugged individualists, some of the Tsimihety accept schooling, others do not. Religion plays only a small role in their lives. There is no trace among them of an orderly kinship system or order of inheritance.

We can best describe this people as “wholeheartedly dedicated to the possibilities of freedom,” refusing to be fettered by the demands of system or symbol. Free from social chaos or disintegration, the Tsimihety have developed a flexible and pragmatic solution to their social life. They choose to retain all their freedom by avoiding any confining metaphysical system that might organize their life in an authoritarian fashion. They view the world piecemeal and are free to interpret it in accord with their own needs.

Scientific anthropology has been unable to devise a model of a liberty-centered society, which could serve to organize and explain the research data collected on the Tsimihety. The lack of a suitable model suggests that anthropology is inadequate in some respects. Given its present paradigm of social systems, anthropology is tempted to ignore data that stretch beyond its limited framework.

IV

Individual and Social Good

Markedly different perspectives and paradigms have been offered to describe the supposed antimony of the individual vs. the group.

The next set of summaries illustrates a sampling from this perennial debate over the claims and status of the individual in relation to the group.

Does the individual have a sovereign and protected sphere of rights that deserves social respect in the areas of privacy, autonomy, personal choice, and artistic expression—even if these individual values seem to clash with the community or “social good”?

Methodologically and metaphysically, which has primary reality and significance: the group or the individual? Can or should individual choice, or self-interest, maximize social good and utility?