Moral Man and Immoral Society By Reinhold Niebuhr After reading this book, written in 1932, with a new introduction written in 1960, I am convinced that his message is, if anything, more relevant today than when it was first written. His two major premises were: one, that individuals are capable of moral values and behavior, while larger groups are usually not; and, second, that what he calls, variously, “educational authorities,” “social scientists,” “middle-class intellectual and religious moralist hope [naively] to insinuate the ideal of personal morality into the behavior of groups.” “Since reason is always, to some degree, the servant of interest [read: special interests] in a social situation, social injustice cannot be resolved by moral and rational suasion alone, as the educator and social scientist usually believes. Conflict is inevitable, and in this conflict, power must be challenged by power.” Later, “Modern educators, like rationalists of all the ages, are too enamored of the function of reason in life.. The world of history, particularly in man's collective behavior, will never be conquered by reason, unless reason uses tools, and is itself driven by forces which are not rational. All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.” Note that he says, “requires a measure of coercion.” Of course, those whom he refers to as intellectual and religious moralists, we would call “Liberals.” Chris Hedges recent book, The Death of the Liberal Class, and Paul Krugman's book from 2004, The Great Unraveling, both make the same point in different ways. We are at the effect right now of a Plutocratic coup d'etat, a Right-wing Reactionary Revolution. As paradoxical as that term may seem, it is accurate, reflective as it is of the inherent cognitive dissonance plaguing those who are promoting and benefitting from it. Somewhere, Plato is smiling smugly, as his critique of Democracy – that it is based on the false belief that all citizens are equally capable of self-government – is being borne out again. Krugman, in his introduction, quoted extensively from the doctoral thesis of Henry Kissinger (of all people), which traced a similar failure of the liberal thinkers to recognize and confront similar revolutions in Europe in the 19th Century and again in the mid-20th Century. When Niebuhr says that a measure of coercion is required, he is not talking about violent revolution, though he does acknowledge the need for limited forms of violence in dealing with what he calls the “privileged classes” who inevitably dominate any political system as long as they are unchallenged by the oppressed majority. Niebuhr explains that as soon as human societies begin to develop more complexity, a privileged class always emerges, in one form or another. He returns often to the rampant hypocrisy which serves to mask the chasm between the moral values of the vast majority of individuals within a society, and the manifestly immoral, often bestial (predatory) values of the larger society (a group of groups). Values may be relatively moral within a group, but never between different groups, especially between those at the top and those at the bottom. “With the increased centralization of economic power in the period of modern industrialism [and, nowadays, the financial institutions] … economic rather than political and military power has become the significant coercive force in modern society [remember: he was writing this in 1932!]. Either it defies the authority of the state or it bends the institutions of the state to its own purposes [sound familiar?]. Political power has been made [through media manipulations that Niebuhr could not have foreseen] responsible to industrial [and financial] interests, while economic power has become irresponsible to the need of the larger society.” “It may on occasion appropriate the police and army of the state to defend its interests against internal and external forces [can you say “Occupy”?]. “Power sacrifices justice to peace within the community and destroys peace between communities....The whole history of mankind bears testimony to the fact that the power which prevents [what it considers] anarchy in intra-group relationships encourages anarchy in intergroup relations.” Commenting on another apparently permanent problem, Niebuhr wrote, 80 years ago, “Thus,for instance, a laissez faire economic theory is maintained... through the ignorant belief that the general welfare is best served by placing the least possible political restraints upon economic activity. The history of the last hundred years [now 180 years and counting...] is a refutation of the theory; but it is still maintained, or is dying a too lingering death, particularly in nations as politically incompetent as our own [again, some things never seem to change]. “It suffers because of the ignorance of those who suffer injustice at its hands because they fail to attribute their difficulties to the social anarchy and political irresponsibility which the theory sanctions.” Chapter Five is titled, “The Ethical Attitudes of Privileged Classes.” “Classes may be formed on the basis of common functions in society, but they do not become sharply distinguished until function is translated into privilege.” That produces what I call the Envelope of Privilege. Also, privilege clings to those who need it most, and they will do almost anything to keep it. Niebuhr says: “The moral attitudes of dominant and privileged classes are characterized by universal self-deception and hypocrisy.” We are up here in the wagon of privilege because we are better, as Edward Bellamy noted long ago in Looking Backward. Later, Niebuhr says: “The blessings which Jesus pronounced upon the poor and the warnings he sounded against riches are based on the recognition that there are temptations of riches which are too great to be overcome. They can only be escaped by voluntary or involuntary poverty. Special privileges make all men [and women] dishonest. The purest conscience and the clearest mind is prostituted by the desire to prove them morally justified.” To summarize: denial and hypocrisy allow rationalization and protect against guilt and shame, because only a handful of humans are capable of conscious evil. While discussing the role of violence in revolution, he writes,”nothing is intrinsically immoral except ill-will and nothing is intrinsically good except goodwill.” “Since it is very difficult to judge human motives [indeed!], it is natural that, from an external perspective, the social consequence of an action or policy should be regarded as more adequate tests of its morality than the hidden motives.” The Marxian prediction of “inevitable revolution” was derailed by several developments: 1. The peasant class craved land reform and included some bourgeois values. 2. The middle class was greatly expanded by education and expanded suffrage, which made the political class more responsive to their need/wants. 3. Technology created ever more skilled workers whose pay was better. As they bought homes and watched some of their children rising through education and ambition, their unions became increasingly reactionary. 4. The worst excesses of Capitalism were modified externally and internally enough to stave off any ''inevitable'' collapse. They periodically over-produce and/or over-borrow [sound familiar?], creating economic crises, but they are incredibly clever using their money and political influence to wiggle through. FDR and World War II helped them a lot. Regarding the communist/socialist ideal of “from each according to ability and to each according to need,” he says “it is sentimental and romantic [naïve!] to assume that any education or any example will ever completely destroy the inclination of human nature to seek special advantages at the expense of, or in indifference to, the needs and interests of others.” I think he is too cynical here, but we definitely have a problem with the nature of some humans – those for whom enough will never be enough. Anticipating recent realizations of the limitations of the rational will, as part of his criticism of middle-class intellectual schemes to create a gradual political evolution toward a more just society, he says, “Such is the inclination of the human mind for beginning with assumptions which have been determined by other than rational considerations [aka irrational considerations], and building a superstructure of rationally acceptable judgements upon them, that all this can be done without any conscious dishonesty.” The penultimate chapter titled, “Moral Values in Politics,” talks a lot about the need for “equal justice,” and the role of coercion in accomplishing that. The most important conclusion is that oppressed groups “have a higher moral right to challenge their oppressors than these have to maintain their rule.” Whether that requires violence “must be deferred.... It is important first to insist that equality [which he has earlier qualified as equal justice, since equality itself is an unreasonable and impossible goal in the real world] is a higher social goal than peace.” Especially since, “peace is often maintained by the privileged classes through clandestine coercion.” This is painfully relevant at a time when billionaire oligarchs like the Koch brothers are using the “Citizens United” decision of the Supreme Court to sponsor demagogic appeals to ignorant, frightened voters to vote agains their own best interests, electing extremist Right-Wing Republicans to all levels of government so they can use our current debt crisis (here and in Europe) to complete the dismantlement of our social safety net, reducing government to military and police protection of their wealth and privileges, leaving millions of workers with no choice but to accept bad jobs for peon wages to prevent homelessness or even starvation. Writing more than 80 years ago, Niebuhr said, “All social power is partially derived from the actual possession of physical instruments of coercion, economic or martial, but it depends also to a large degree upon its ability to secure unreasoned and unreasonable obedience, respect and reverence.” To which I would only add ignorance and insecurity, the ultimate “potting soil” for the worst demagoguery. In the final chapter, “Individual and Social Morality,” he says that at a simple level we are talking about the inherent conflict between ethics and politics: “One focuses on the inner life of the individual, and the other in the necessities of man's social life.” This conflict, he says, is not insoluble, but is extremely difficult to solve. The key is “the control of moral goodwill. Any justice which is only justice soon degenerates in something less than justice. The realistic wisdom of the statesman is reduced to foolishness if it is not under the influence of the foolishness of the moral seer.” On the last page of the book, “We can no longer buy the highest satisfaction of the individual life at the expense of social injustice. We cannot build our individual ladder to heaven and leave the total human enterprise unredeemed of its excesses and corruptions.” We need “new illusions for the abandoned ones.” “The most important of these illusions is that the collective life of mankind can achieve perfect justice.” This illusion is needed because “justice cannot even be approximated if the hope of its perfect realization does not generate a sublime madness in the soul. Nothing but such madness will do battle with the malignant powers and 'spiritual wickedness in high places.' This illusion is dangerous [of course] because it encourages fanaticisms. It must therefore be brought under the control of reason. We can only hope that reason will not destroy it [the necessary illusion] before its work is done.”