Tolkien on Power and Market

by Alberto Mingardi and Carlo Stagnaro

Great works of fiction speak to everyone. They tell universal stories with plots, characters, conflicts and details which illuminate or comment upon human nature. This is clearly the key to the success of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which is a huge commercial blockbuster especially now, with the release of the popular series of movies. But the book has always had a popular cult following, and many interpretations of the Middle Earth saga – even political ones – have been offered over the years.

In a couple of recent articles (see: "Tolkien vs. Power," Mises.org, and "Tolkien vs. Socialism," LRC), we have given a basic account of the libertarian nuances of Tolkien's thought. This time we will try to deal with criticisms of our thesis. We will particularly focus on what is perhaps the best-grounded attempt to frame Tolkien's political insights from another, opposite, perspective: that provided by Canadian-born independent scholar Patrick Curry, in his Defending Middle-Earth. Tolkien: Myth & Modernity (London: Harper Collins, 1997). This is a 160-page critical work, developed from a talk presented by Curry on the occasion of a 1992 Centenary Conference (see Patricia Reynolds and Glen H. Goodknight, Proceedings of the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference. Keble College, Oxford, 1992).

Curry's pamphlet is a well-written, engaging essay. It is not sloppy scholarship, nor is it the literary equivalent of a fast-food snack, along the lines of Michael White's Tolkien. A Biography. Dr. Curry's aim is also praiseworthy. He attempts to offer an articulate answer to the typical sneering at Tolkien's work that frequently comes from professional literati, an attitude he attributes to what novelist Ursula K. Le Guin has defined as "a deep puritanical distrust of fantasy." It seems to be quite a widespread virus among intellectuals. Curry’s effort, insofar as it is represents a man of letters seeking to rescue Tolkien from the haughty critics, is very much needed. Three cheers for Patrick.

Curry fights what he aptly calls the "modernism" of those critics, and credits himself as a "post-modernist" defender of Tolkien. In spite of the fact that Dr. Curry pretends he is dealing with literary criticism, he is consciously using the jargon of social sciences (sociology in particular), and addressing more "ideological" questions so to speak, than literary ones. This is quite clear as soon as one takes a look at the index of names and references: Theodor Adorno and Max Horkmeiner are quoted three times, as many times as Tolkien's acclaimed biographer Humphrey Carpenter. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman is quoted four times, exactly as much as the Beowulf, one of the "topoi" of Tolkien's scholarship. The Bible deserves no more than two quotations (one in a footnote), half of Salman Rushdie's. Feminist writer Angela Carter is quoted five times, one more than Théoden King, as many as the Hobbit Merry, one less than Max Weber.

Please note that, in the introduction, Dr. Curry guarantees that "my goal means addressing contemporary conditions – cultural, social and political – and readers; and, as far as seems relevant, Tolkien's own character and intentions. But I try to do so while respecting the books' internal integrity; that is, without the single-minded reductionism that sees everything in such a story as 'representing' something else, in line with a predetermined interpretive programme around class, or gender, or the unconscious" (p. 16). Well said. He goes on to quote Tolkien on allegory ("I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations"), and announces that "I have too much respect for Tolkien's work, in all its richness, to sacrifice it on the altar of theory" (p. 18).

These are apparently wise words. They seem to embody a well-deserved respect towards Tolkien's prose, and we have no reason to doubt Dr. Curry is good-willed. Anyway, the fact that Tolkien was no fan of allegorical novels does not mean he did not use symbols in his own writings, especially when he himself explained what a particular symbol stood for in his extraordinary letters, edited by his son Christopher.

Tolkien himself distinguished "applicability" from "allegory": "one resides in the freedom of the reader, the other in the purposed domination of the author." Curry quotes Tolkien on the matter, and avails himself of the "right as a reader to perceive 'applicability'" (p. 72). In so doing, Curry commits a gigantic mistake which should be avoided by any conscious scholar of Tolkien. He suggests that the Ring "epitomizes the strongest economic and political power in Middle-earth, which already threatens to dominate all others in one vast autocratic realm" (emphasis added). Please note that the adjective "economic" lies in a prominent position: Dr. Curry is not suggesting that Power, to reach the stage of a totalitarian state, has to take over the economy, but rather implies that the economy is based upon a Power-like relationship itself.

"Economic" power is indeed the shibboleth of many pundits. As Murray Rothbard explained, so-called "economic power" is a vague label used for an alleged form of "private coercion." "A favourite illustration of the wielding of such 'power' is the case of a worker fired from his job, especially by a large corporation. Is this not 'as bad as' violent coercion against the property of the worker? ... Let us look at this situation closely. What exactly has the employer done? He has refused to continue to make a certain exchange which the worker preferred to continue making. Specifically, A, the employer, refuses to sell a certain sum of money in exchange for the purchase of B's labor services."

But "under a regime of freedom, where no violence is permitted, every man has the power either to make or not to make exchanges as and with whom he sees fit... 'Economic power,' then, is simply the right under freedom to refuse to make any exchange. Every man has this power." (Power and Market, pp. 228–229)

How different from "political power"! The latter is a power retained by the few, to be exercised over the many. It is not a mere refusal to keeping a voluntary relationship going: it is the power to impose some decisions and their burdens on unconsenting adults. Alas, if economic power is an empty shell which anyone may fill accordingly to his own prejudices, ideas, and interests, political power is clearly about domination.

There is some evidence Tolkien saw himself as an opponent of political power, and wanted his opus magnum to reflect his own feelings. He wrote:

The Lord of the Rings is precisely the epic journey to destroy the One Ring, which symbolizes absolute power. He who wears the Ring becomes a slave at the same time as he is made supremely powerful. This recalls what actually happens in our own world every day: rulers, even well intentioned and idealistic ones, are ruled themselves at the same time by their spasmodic need for more power.

As a matter of fact, Tolkien maintains that power is always evil – a good power cannot even be conceived. From the very beginning of the novel, the good guys own the Ring. Since it is the most powerful weapon in the world, many of them argue it could be used against Sauron, the Dark Lord. Even though the Ring was forged by him and is undoubtedly evil, they suspect it could nonetheless help to pursue a good end. This is an extraordinary way to ask the question: can the means be subordinated to the ends? Can a good end be pursued by evil means? Tolkien's answer is strikingly negative: evil means can pursue only an evil end – no matter if the intentions of the actor(s) incline to the good.

When Frodo offers him the Ring, the wise Gandalf cries:

Curry refuses to adopt the approach we have briefly outlined and instead proposes an alternative hypothesis. Accordingly, the Ring does not represent what Tolkien himself clarified it represents in his mythology, but is rather a symbol of the "megamachine," an artifact of "modernity."

Here Curry provides his own definition of "modernity," taking advantage of the fact that the "anti-modernism" of Tolkien's writings is self-evident, and self-proclaimed. The point is that, of course, in order to realize what "anti-modernism" is, you must provide a positive definition of "modernity" in the first place. Curry proposes his own one: "modernity is thus characterized by the combination of modern science, a global capitalist economy, and the political power of the nation-state" (p. 22).

Such definition is ingenuous and wrong. The historical co-existence of these three elements is arguably not pure chance: science and technology played a considerable role in advancing the productive capacity of the capitalist system, and the capitalist system in turn supplied more resources for innovation and technological advancement. The nation state provides the legal framework, being the monopolist of aggression and pretending to be the ultimate decision-maker.

But are these three factors logically and inevitably bound together? Is this "combination" the only possible one? Does capitalism need nation states? Can we imagine a scenario in which the nation state is no longer in place, but science and capitalism still flourish? Vice versa, is it not empirically true that there are nation states where development has been cut short by those very same institutions of the state?

Moreover, as soon as we speak of "modernity," we must find something which is truly peculiar to this very limited age. Is science exclusively a "modern" feature? Certainly, technology sky- rocketed in the 19th century and great developments were achieved. But we might point to the example of space exploration, which began during the Cold War as the "space race" between the US and the Soviet Union. Must we assume that the existence of the Soviet Union was a necessary historical condition for human exploration of space?

We won't deny that the antagonism between the US and the USSR "prompted," so to speak, the Apollo missions, or the Sputniks. But it seems to us ludicrous to support the idea that the fact that the Cold War and space exploration coexisted for a time is anything more than a historical coincidence.

This is even clearer when we examine the relationship between the market and the state: the whole corpus of libertarian writing argues that they are not twin brothers, but rather that each is the enemy of the other. History also teaches that we experienced the free market before the nation state was born. The standard example is, of course, the institutional framework of the European "feudal anarchy." But America itself was a market long before becoming a modern state.

Moreover, developments in science are a constant feature of human history: ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and feudal Europe all experienced dramatic achievements in disciplines like physics, medicine, and chemistry. They also developed some technologies which formed the basis for our own progress.

Never was such pre-modern progress as bright as after the Industrial Revolution, certainly. But since we knew science and technology before the modern period, we can’t claim that they are a peculiar trait of the modern age.

If we put aside science and free market capitalism, what are we left with? Obviously, the state. It, indeed, is a typically modern institution: we have always had governments, but never a state structured like the one which emerged from absolutism and the French Revolution.

When Tolkien opposed modernity, he was opposing modernity precisely in this sense. He was not a proto-green theorist, nor did he anticipate any trend in the current environmentalist movement. He did have, of course, an aesthetic preference for a more rural, less urbanized society. But even his alleged "fear" of machinery has been largely exaggerated by some of his readers.

Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter remembers that, during August 1953, Tolkien visited George Sayer in Ireland. Sayer was a close friend of C.S. Lewis, who was professor at Malvern College and often attended the Inklings’ meetings. (The Inklings were a group of scholars bound together by the same passion for ancient stories and myths; among them were J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, C. Williams, and so forth. See Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, C. Williams and their friends). Mr. Sayer recorded Tolkien reading some extracts from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Then he played the recording tape. Initially, JRRT was wary: he had never seen anything like it. So, he recited the Pater Noster in order to drive away demons, then repeatedly tried out the recorder and was so struck by it that he bought one to use at home. Thanks to it, he eventually ended up composing a radio comedy, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhtelm’s Son. (See Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien (A Biography)). This demonstrates that Tolkien, who certainly didn’t love modern technology, was indeed ready to take advantage of it; he simply feared the bad use human beings could make of such technology, but never denied that there were good uses as well.

Curry systematically tries to read Tolkien's contempt towards the state as tantamount a refusal to accept scientific "modernity," and so an attempt to prepare the ground for "post-modernism." Even this view lies in a precise confusion between two different kinds of power. Curry openly fails to distinguish between two very different concepts: "power over nature and power over man," as Murray Rothbard defined them.

Curry intentionally confuses one sort of power with the other, and takes advantage of the slipperiness of the word "power" to portray Tolkien as an environmentalist.

Curry also presents a completely stereotyped view of capitalism, looking for "class awareness" (p. 40) in Tolkien, while suggesting that "in sharp contrast to our possessive individualism, the Hobbits are intensely communal... and live in a relatively simple and frugal way... Collective voluntary simplicity is becoming the only positive alternative to collective immiseration" (p. 51).

The alleged "frugality" is not a choice; rather, it is simply typical of an agrarian, pre-industrial society depicted by Tolkien not just in the Shire, but in all Middle Earth. As soon as Tolkien chooses that setting for his stories, it is the need for realism within the confines of the story which prompts him to describe such a living condition.

However, generally speaking, the Hobbits are quite wealthy, and engage in trade with the rest of the known world (Pipe-weed being their leading product). The Shire is a sort of "confederacy," with no central government. It "had hardly any ‘government’. Families for the most part managed their own affairs. Growing food and eating it occupied most of their time. In other matters they were, as a rule, generous and not greedy, but contented and moderate, so that estates, farms, workshops, and small trades tended to remain unchanged for generations." The Hobbits "attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were ‘The Rules’ (as they said), both ancient and just" (The Lord of the Rings, p. 9). There was a strong sense of being members of the same community – and that was an individual and voluntary choice. This didn’t exclude the possibility for some (including the Baggins of Hobbiton) to get richer. And it’s hard to speak about classes, let alone "class awareness," when one looks at the kind of feudal-style relationship between Frodo and Sam, for instance: they are friends, but Frodo is the master and Sam the gardener in the first place.

Then there is the matter of Tolkien's relationship with the natural world. Curry quotes a letter Tolkien wrote to the Daily Telegraph, on July 4th 1972. "I am (obviously) much in love with plants and above all trees, and always have been; and I find human maltreatment of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals" (p. 65).

What Curry does not acknowledge here is that Tolkien is making a comparison between the maltreatment of plants and animals, but what he doesn't do is to compare maltreatment of animals and plants to child abuse, rape, or war atrocities. It is not because Tolkien was a libertarian (or an anarcho-conservative, as he would rather define himself), but because he was a Christian and a Roman Catholic.

This is of a particular interest in Curry's study: he systematically refuses to deal with Tolkien's Catholicism. He seems sure that "despite his personal religious convictions, Tolkien was acutely aware of writing in and for a divided post-Christian audience." "His book therefore makes no explicit reference to any organized religion at all, and... offers no hostages to a religious allegorical interpretations" (p. 28).

He therefore suggests that in The Lord of the Rings "there is much evidence of an active animism," and that the Middle Earth is but "nominally monotheistic... the One only directly intervened in history once, in the momentous reshaping of the world in the Second Age. There is never the slightest suggestion that He would do so again, no matter how badly matters went in the War of the Ring" (p. 109).

Curry also sees in the spiritual world of the Middle-earth "both a polytheist-cum-animist cosmology of 'natural magic' and a Christian (but non-sectarian) ethic of humility and compassion" (pp. 28–29).

This is a rather peculiar statement, especially in the light of Tolkien's own writings, and recent studies too. Tom Shippey, for example, pointed out that the Fellowship of the Ring departs from Rivendell on December 25, with its success and the fall of Sauron on March 25. While the symbolism of the departure date is obvious, March 25 is more obscure. It is, however, a very important date in the old English calendar: on that day, the English once acknowledged the fall of Adam and Eve and celebrated St. Gabriel's Annunciation to Mary and the Resurrection of Christ at the same time. Really, a meaningful day.

Moreover, it’s not completely true that the One – God – never intervenes in history. He does it rarely, of course, but always to shape events of major importance. For example, why did Bilbo find the Ring in the first place? Gandalf explains that

The same can be said with regard to that hideous strength by which Sam saves his master from the Orcs at Cirith Ungol, right after defeating the previously undefeated Shelob. And the very destruction of the Ring – the way it falls in the Cracks of Doom – may be understood either by invoking chance or Providence, and it’s very difficult to opt for the former. In fact, as JRRT himself writes:

In a 1968 column, Russell Kirk beautifully grasped the meaning and method of Tolkien's literary accomplishments, acknowledging that "Tolkien is a man profoundly religious, but far more subtle and more exciting than the talented author of religious tracts. The imagery of his fantasies is drawn more from Norse mythology than from Christian tradition or the classical world. [But] In his fables there are men and elves and dwarves and trolls and wizards – and especially hobbits, a race of simple and likable beings who teach us more about man’s condition than could any naturalistic representation of man himself." Kirk went so far as to recognize that "Tolkien teaches us how to live here and now – how to triumph over death. In an age of scribbling neurotics, Tolkien is a giant of faith."

Here Curry’s interpretative attempt is wrecked. To read Tolkien as an environmentalist, it is necessary to refuse to acknowledge his Catholicism. The Bible is not obscure on the topic. God's first command to mankind is "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth" (Gen. 1:28). Also, in the Gospel, simply commanding "Peace! Be still!" (Mk. 4:39) Jesus Christ shows himself to be Lord of nature such that "even wind and sea obey Him" (Mk. 4:41). He addresses His creation and demands obedience. But we have to remember that, according to Genesis, man is made in God's "image and likeness" (Gen. 1:26). That is, men are called by God Himself to exercise their stewardship over His creation. It is not a surprise that environmentalists have to get back to a sort of paganism, even when reading The Lord of the Rings, to provide a suitable backing of their ideology. Tolkien's message in any case should not be misunderstood: he stood up against power over man, hoping – as a Roman Catholic – that men will be wise enough to understand how to exercise power over nature in the most responsible way.

January 3, 2003

Alberto Mingardi [send him mail] is a student in political thought in Italy. Carlo Stagnaro [send him mail] co-edits the libertarian magazine "Enclave" and edited the book "Waco. Una strage di stato americana." Here's his website.

Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com