User:ObeliskBJM/Sandbox (2)

1. "Socialism," wrote Elie Halévy, "is before all else a doctrine of organization." He goes on to specify the nature of this organization: "modern socialism affirms that it is possible to replace the free initiative of individuals with the concerted action of the collectivity in the production and division of wealth." For Halévy, the concept of organization, applied to society in pursuit of a particular end, lends to socialism a contradictory character: in part democratic and conscious of liberty, at the same time it aims at a rupture with and radical transformation of the current state of society. Halévy's insight raises the question of how socialism, as a doctrine of organization, can be compatible both with liberalism and with democracy. Is not the socialist concept of organization deeply illiberal? Or is socialist organization, understood in some sense, compatible with individual and social freedom?

2. The elements of organization: association, representation, and regulation. To organize society means to represent all its constituent interests, beliefs, and desires, and to regulate the expression of these interests, beliefs, and desires. Representation and regulation occur at multiple levels, each one being an association of like interests, beliefs, and desires at the level below. At the lowest tier, these interests, beliefs, and desires belong to individual persons, who associate into a first level of social groups. At first glance the divide between socialist and liberal concepts of organization seems clear enough. Liberals hold that associations are secondary to individual persons, that society is self-regulating, and that any form of representation that extends 'above' society, even representation in a democratic state, is to be distrusted. Socialists, on the other hand, hold that associations are a constitutive element of society, and that society must be regulated by an external power, the state, which is also the ultimate level of representation.

3. Moreover, liberalism in its orthodox variety refuses even to adhere to the "thick" view of society that I have described, in which society is composed of multiple layers of association. Orthodox liberalism considers the self-regulation of society to arise directly from the interactions of individuals: this is essentially the meaning of Smith's "invisible hand," Kant's "unsocial sociability," and Hayek's "spontaneous order." It is this form of liberalism that socialists have often maligned for "atomizing" individual persons. But it is not the only liberal model of organization. During the latter half of the 19th century, the British "new liberals," J. S. Mill, T. H. Green, and L. T. Hobhouse, revised the orthodox liberal concepts of association, representation, and regulation to accord with the "thick" view of society I have described.