What Is Shactman Driving At?

 On Page 207 of his biography of Eric Hoffer, American Iconoclast, The Life and Times of Eric Hoffer, Tom Schactman writes of Hoffer late in his life: "A typical quote was from Lord Acton, 'There is no liberty where there is hunger. The theory of liberty demands strong efforts to help the poor, not merely for safety, for humanity, for religion, but for liberty.' Hoffer's comment was not so much an interpretation of this statement in answering one that emphasized his own take on liberty and its relationship to hunger: 'Acton could not foresee that the end of hunger will mean the end of the invisible hand of scarcity which regulates and disciplines people, and creates the need for a new despotic power to contain anarchy. In other words, there is no liberty not only where there is hunger but also where there is widespread abundance. The zone of individual freedom is midway between the extremes of scarcity and plenty.' This was an idea that could have sustained some greater elucidation, perhaps even a meditation on its relationship to capitalism--but Hoffer was no longer in shape to undertake such inquiries."

I followed Tom Schactman on Facebook, and he is obviously a successful writer, lecturer and historian. He understood Hoffer but I think he is ambivalent in his treatment of Hoffer because he may not see Hoffer as he was, the radical conservative--the conservative, classical liberal with a patriotic love of individualism, our Constitution,  capitalism, our mass, middle class culture and our wondrous wealth, leisure and liberty--but perhaps tinged as the bad conservative that is a nativist, a white supremacist, a fascist, imperialist or jingoist. I am not sure if Schactman does not see Hoffer in line a bit with the latter sense of strong conservatism.

In the quote from Shactman's book above, Hoffer shows his moderation in suggesting that humans find and sustain liberty between the economic extremes of scarcity and abundance. Hoffer is probably correct that humans function best when not poor or wealth, but when middle class or slightly upper middle class. That is where individualism, reason, materialism, liberty, republicanism and constitutionalism unfold most readily.

That such abundance and liberty occur together in America is no accident, and Shactman wanted Hoffer to conclude, I believe, that capitalism is creating too much wealth, likely concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few, and in need of involuntary redistribution handled by government agents. Socialist redistribution of wealth in America would blunt capitalist excesses and preserve liberty at the same time--I anticipate but do not know that that was what Schactman favors.

I am comfortable in suggesting that Hoffer would not want capitalism trifled with or redistributed by tyrannical government. He was not for the rich, nor for the poor. He was for working people and the middle class, the people that did the work and generated most of the wealth to be had and enjoyed in America. Hoffer might suggest that, to maintain liberty threatened by the excesses of abundance, the cure would not be to end capitalism, the engine of our prosperity, but to teach young people by good values to discipline themselves to continue to work hard even though they were in the midst of un-paralleled plenty. To teach the young to work and create their own wealth, and to maverize, would keep wealth decentralized in a future upper middle class average citizen and his family, and would provide the young with purpose, that by maverizing and developing themselves, in perfect liberty and independence within the free market capitalist system, they would not ally themselves with desperate isms and ideologies to overthrow the status quo because they are rich, idle, bored and ready to tear society apart. I think something like this was what Hoffer was driving at.