The Frontier Is Freedom •

A Moral Code for Rational Man .

Light Brings Forth the Eye

59

62

Paul L. Poirot 3

William Henry Chamberlin 9

Karl Brandt 12

Edmund A. Opitz 22

John C. Sparks 30

Leonard E. Read 34

C/ar-ence B. Carson 40

Edward P. Coleson 54

John Chamberlain

1965MARCH

Nor Oysters from the Desert Sands .

Books:

I'll Respect Your Life

The Failure of InternationalCommodity Agreements.

Winner Take All .

The Flight from Reality6. An American Dream

liThe Great Society"

Other Books .

FINANCIAL STRENGTH - Assets over half a billion dollars. Strongreserves and high ratio of cash and government bonds to assure with­drawal of savings immediately on request.

HIGHER EARNINGS - Earnings for 1964 paid at 4.9% per year.

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"A Businessman Looks at Communism Vs. Capitalism"For your courtesy copy of President Joe Crail's speech,write to:

Coast Federal SavingsPost Office Box 5150ALos Angeles 55, California

lit' Are we expecting to reap the bless­ings of freedom without understand­ing the necessary procedures to earnthem? p. 3

lit' When Henry Hazlitt digs at TheFoundations of Morality, the resultseems worthy of more than onereview p. 9

lit' A world renowned student of agri­cUltural affairs relates the failures ofInternational Commodity Agreementsto the disastrous domestic attemptsat political management of farmers

................ p. 12

,II'" When the principles of limited gov­ernment are forgotten or ignored,then majority rule quickly degenerates

into a desperate game of "winnertake all." p. 22

lit' From a slightly different angle,John Sparks views the same problemof departure from principle and cau­tions the reader to abide by the na-ture of things p. 30

lit' Our mass myopia, according to

Leonard Read, may have reached the

sad state where a cure is to be found

only as we develop new eyes - new

insight and understanding of freedom

................p.34

IIfI# Dr. Carson, in this chapter, shows

how The Flight from Reality reached

our shores and was converted into an

American dream of utopia ........p. 40

II'" To those who deplore the vanishing

frontier, Professor Coleson proposes

that freedom alone is a frontier

worth exploring p. 54

II'" John Chamberlain examines The

Great Society as projected by Graham

Wallas in 1914 p. 59

II'" Robert Thornton is fascinated by

The Mind and Art of Albert Jay Nock,

in the new book by Robert M.

Crunden p. 63

Anyone wishing to communicate with authors may sendfirst-class mail in care of THE FREEMAN for forwarding.

MARCH 1965

LEONARD E. READ

PAUL L. POIROT

Vol. 15, No.3

President, Foundation forEconomic Education

Managing Editor

THE FREEMAN is published monthly by theFoundation for Economic Education, Inc., a non­

political, nonprofit educational champion of privateproperty, the free market, the profit and loss system,and limited government, founded in 1946, with officesat Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. Any interestedperson may receive its publications for the asking.The costs of Foundation projects and services, in­cluding THE FREEMAN, are met through volun­tary donations. Total expenses average $12.00 a yearper person on the mailing list. Donations are invitedin any amount - $5.00 to $10,000 - as the means ofmaintaining and extending the Foundation's work.

Copyright, 1965, The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Printedin U.S.A.

Additional copies, postpaid, to one address: Single copy, 50 cents;3 for $1.00; 25 or more, 20 cents each.

Permission is hereby granted to anyone to reprint any article in wholeor in part, providing customary credit is given, except "The Flightfrom Reality" and "A Moral Code for Rational Man."

Any current article will be supplied in reprint form if there are enoughinquiries to justify the cost of the printing.

PAUL L. POIROT

IF A PERSON were to say to you,"I'll respect your life, if you'll re­spectmine," you might hastilyreact with, "Fair enough," and'let it go. But the chances are that,after a moment's reflection, you'dbegin to wonder what kind of anut he is or just what he had inmind. Did he think you were aboutto attack him? Doesn't he trustyou? Or, had he been thinkingabout attacking you? Perhaps hewas trying to throw you off guardbefore launching his attack? Thathe would even think of offeringsuch a proposition certainly placeshim under a cloud of suspicion!You might expect a child to thusbargain over whether to be goodor not, but an adult ... ?

What you really would be say­'ing to yourself, through such re­flections, is that respect for lifedoesn't begin that way, as a dealbetween persons involved. Some-

one has to begin, and the begin­ning consists of the unconditional,unilateral decision: "I'll respectyour life, and all life." This is anact of faith, faith that others willrespond in kind to one's ronducttoward them.

Respect for private propertyhad its beginning in that sameway, when someone decided; "I'llnot steal." The idea never couldhave come to fruition had theproposition been: "If you'll notsteal from me, I'll not steal fromyou." Someone, all by himself, hadto begin not stealing, as an act ofrespect for his fellow man and anact of self-respect, self-confidence,self-responsibility.

Yes, the personal practice offreedom begins at home, with theindividual. It begins with the uni­lateral, unconditional behavior ofa person with a highly developedsense of moral responsibility, a

3

4 THE FREEMAN March

sense of self-responsibility thatgrows out of self-respect. Thismust be the message of theadmonition to love one's neighboras oneself. A truly self-respectingindividual sees the wisdom of re­specting others, voluntarily andunconditionally acting towardthem as he hopes they may reacttoward him, whether or not theyhave so acted in the past or agreedto act in the future.

The religious or moral case forthe practice of the Golden Ruleought to be sufficient, but thepractice also is sound from astrictly utilitarian point of view.It pays to respect the dignity ofothers and their rights to prop­erty. A very wealthy businessmanonce expressed the wish thateveryone in the world might bewealthier than he. His point wasthat his services would be in evengreater demand in such a societyso blessed with riches. And thepoint would stand, whether a manhas accumulated vast savings ofhis own, or not. In any event,whether wealthy or poor, it wouldbe to his advantage to respect theproperty rights of all to whom hemight hope to sell his own goodsand services. Their property is allthey have to offer him in exchange.And unless private property rightsare recognized and mutually re­spected among men, there is nochance for the easy way of earning

a living through specialization andvoluntary exchange. It would beimpossible to accumulate the sav­ings that represent the tools andcapital necessary to create job op­portunities for workers. Unlessproperty is respected as thefoundation for voluntary· produc­tion and trade, the only alterna­tive is· a dog-eat-dog struggle thatliterally leaves each person fight­ing for his life. That would be thehard way to Iive, and not many ofus could hope to last very long ifwe tried it.

Our Daily Bread

In the vast majority of ourdaily affairs, most of us uncon­sciously follow the easy way. Ifwe want a loaf of bread or a canof beans, we simply go to a grocerand buy them; it never occurs tous that the grocer wouldn't bethere with his well-stocked shelvesif we had failed to respect anduphold his rights to property. Norwill he be willing to sell to usunless he respects our right tothe money (property) we offer inexchange for the bread and beans.

In contrast to this simple, easyway of life, suppose that we triedtaking the bread we want throughforce. We'd probably organize theAmalgamated Militant Breadwin­ners of America in an attempt tooutnumber and overpower themembers of the Bakers Protective

1965 I'LL RESPECT YOUR LIFE 5

Association - with the result thatvery little, if any, bread would bebaked, or consumed. Not every­one would starve to death, ofcourse; .many would have died inbattle. That would be the hardway of life, the penalty Naturelevies upon those who will notrespect life and property.

Now, it's true that we may sayto the baker, "I'll give you 25cents if you'll give mea .loaf ofbread." And at that stage of thebargaining or exchange process,there is a deal involved, a quid proquo, something for something. Butthe point to be remembered is thatprior to any contract of sale, eachparty must show unconditionalrespect for the other fellow's prop­erty. Would you buy from anyonewhat you know is not his to sell?Your inclination, in that case,would be to take what you want,just as he did. So, property rightsand trade go together, and tendto disappear together when eitheris threatened or jeopardized.

State and Federal Aid

This principle of respect forprivate property is not too diffi­cult to understand and practice atthe local level among those weknow and love. But distance fromhome tends to becloud the issue.It is far from clear to many per­sons why the state governmentshould not be called upon to stand

between those who want to pur­chase schooling for their childrenand those who want to providesuch education. And an over­whelming majority of the elector­ate can be mustered in favor of"state aid" for education. Thus,property rights are violated; prop­erty is taken from some, withouttheir express .approval, and des­ignated f or use by others whohave not earned it. Lacking areboth of the prerequisites for con­tinuing peaceful exchange: (1)a quid pro quo or something-for­something, and (2) .the prior uni­lateral expression of self-respectand faith - "I'll not steal." Theresult is a chronic shortage ofeducational facilities - a resultthat can be predicted with abso­lute certainty any time the gov­ernment is invited or allowed toerect barriers between the willingbuyers and the willing sellers ofany particular commodity or ser­vice. If subsidies are offered tothose in need of education, their"needs"-like any other subsidized"needs"-will expand beyond anypossibility of satisfaction.

Rent control affords another ex­ample of the frustration of willingexchange. When the state or Fed­eral government is authorized tocome between landlords and ten­ants, setting a price too low tobalance supply and demand, theresult will be a housing shortage.

6 THE FREEMAN March

When rental properties are thusconfiscated, landlords will tend todivert their savings and efforts toother purposes. The higher thesubsidy available to tenants, themore space they will want to oc­cupy; and their demand can neverbe satisfied by that method. Theintervention at the state or Fed­eral level tends to blind and cor­rupt neighbors who otherwisemight have respected one anotherand their rights to property.

International Trade

Finally, there are the questionsof international trade, with thegreatest possible distances andother barriers between buyers andsellers - where at least one gov­ernment and possibly several gov­ernments are involved. An Amer­ican importer might be quite will­ing to assure a Japanese exporter:"I'll respect your property; I'llnot steaL" But by the time suchan assurance can be deliveredthrough our State Department andtheirs, translated into diplomaticlanguage, it most surely will beoffered as a deal: "If you'll firstagree not to discriminate againstour goods, we'll not discriminateagainst yours." This is like threat­ening a man: "If you cut off yournose to spite your face, I'll cutoff mine !"-as if that would servehim right.

The simple fact, of course, is

that it would be to the advantageof consumers to allow Japanesegoods to enter the United Statesfree of import taxes, whether ornot the Japanese government taxesgoods imported from the UnitedStates. The counter charge willbe that this would deprive Amer­icans of jobs. The charge is un­founded when the "job" marketis viewed as a whole. But, moreimportant, since when is it theduty of any American to makework for others to do? There is nofuture in such a business. A busi­nessman's duty is to providegoods or services customers arewilling to buy. If he can do sowithout working, or without em­ploying anyone, more power andprofit to him - the millennium willhave arrived.

If anyone can buy goods fromJapan for less than his cost ofproducing or buying them else­where, he should be free to do so_. and no one would be injured asa consequence. This, like any othersound business practice, wouldsimply free scarce factors of pro­duction for other and more profit­able uses. His ability to ferret outbetter opportunities to serve andprofit is the businessman's onlyexcuse for existence as an entre­preneur. If this involves creativework for others, fine; but therenever has been and never will bea market demand for work as such

1965 I'LL RESPECT YOUR LIFE 7

- the work must at least promiseto yield something that workers,and customers, want.

Though the full strength oflogic favors free trade interna­tionally, as well as domestically,the stubborn myth prevails thatespecially in international affairsone should never unilaterally offernot to steal, not to kill, not to dis­criminate against the products,the services, or the persons ofpeaceful individuals. Misdirectednationalism blinds one to the factthat, by such discrimination, thenose he cuts off is his own.

Such border barriers to the freemovement of goods and services(people) make tempting militarytargets, and thus afford dubiousprotection for the businesses or thelives of citizens. Yet, we hear iteverywhere, every day: "If you'llfirst reduce your tariffs, we'll re­duce ours. " "If you'll stop inflat­ing your currency, we'll stop in­flating ours." "If you'll ship inour merchant vessels, we'll shipin yours." "If you'll grant rightsof way to our airlines, we'll ac­commodate yours." "If you'll mod­erate your farm support policies,we'll moderate ours." "If you'll re­spect and protect private propertyin your country, we'll do so inours." "If you'll let us use your ca­nal, you may use ours." "If you'llcancel your flight to Mars, we'llcancel ours." "If you'll stop med-

dUng in our business, we'll stopmeddling in yours."

This is by no means the entirelist, but it is sufficient to illustratethe confusion concerning properprocedure for international trade.This partial listing also may af­ford a clue as to the cause of theconfusion: in most of these situ­ations there is no clear title ofownership; the commodity or ser­vice is either owned or regulatedby the government; instead of astrictly voluntary transaction be­tween willing buyers and willingsellers, there has been injected anelement of compulsion. This maywell be the major reason why trad­ing seems so complex at the inter­national level. But it also may bethe reason why we find complica­tions arising as they often do indomestic transactions where na­tional, state, or local governmentshave intervened with regulationsand controls of one kind or anotherthat cloud the titles of ownershipand interfere with the seller's orbuyer's freedom of choice.

", Corrupting Use of Power

Are we saying that governmentsare a positive evil when they con­stitute barriers between willingbuyers and willing sellers andthus frustrate individuals? Yes,this is what we are saying, thatgovernmental force or coercion isout of order when it is employed

8 THE FREEMAN March

in a socialistic manner to inter­fere with the creative activitiesand voluntary relationships amongpeaceful persons. This is how gov­ernments behave when they areconstituted or organized upon thecontractual and unrealistic prin­ciple of "I'll respect your life ifyou'll respect mine."

We are not saying that this isnecessarily the foundation for gov­ernment or that government has tobe socialistic and disruptive ofpeaceful human affairs. Amongpeaceful persons who have individ­ually recognized the morality andwisdom of volunteering unilater­ally not to kill, not to steal, notto injure another deliberately,there would be no need for gov­ernment if everyone were capableof living according to his goodintentions. Yet, within a societyprimarily comprised of property­respecting, peaceful persons, indi­viduals make mistakes; and thereis a place for an organized agency

of force with sufficient power tosuppress or discourage any errantthreat to life or property. Onemay solemnly pledge not to breakthe peace himself and yet con­sistently advocate a governmentpolice force strong enough to over­come and subdue him if in a mo­ment of rashness he should forgetor violate his pledge. Self-controlis a most difficult thing; a prop­erly limited government is a formof organized self-control and maybe helpful in that limited role.But when government exceeds thatvery limited purpose and beginsplacing barriers between willingbuyers and sellers, it then be­comes the positive evil we knowas socialism and all of its varia­tions.

When anyone tries to make adeal to respect your life if you'llrespect his, tell him to forget it- but respect his life anyway, be­cause it is the right thing to do.

Good all the Way

As MORAL GUIDES, the Golden Rule and the Decalogue are not

evil and dangerous things, like a painkilling drug, to be taken

in cautious moderation, if at all. Presuming them to be the basic

guides of what is right and good for civilized man, one cannot

overindulge in them. Good need not be practiced in moderation.

F. A. HARPER, Morals and the Welfare State

A MORAL CODE

FOR MAN

WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN

LONG a sturdy and consistentchampion of the free economy,with the free market and theprofit system as its foundationstones, Henry Hazlitt in TheFoundations of Morality (D. VanNostrand, 398 pp., $9.95) bringsthe familiar gifts of his· felicitouswriting style, lucid exposition,persuasive logic, lightened by agood sense of humor, to the sub­ject of the moral rules whichshould govern human conduct.What he offers is a system of prac­tical ethics,. not bound to but alsonot excluding any specific religiouscommitment.

Modestly admitting that itwould be presumptuous for anywriter to claim very much orig­inality in a subject that has en­gaged the earnest attention of the

Mr. Chamberlin is a skilled observer andreporter of economic and political conditionsat home and abroad. In addition to writinga number of books, he has lectured widelyand is a contributor to The Wall StreetJournal and numerous magazines.

world's greatest minds over 25centuries, Mr. Hazlitt takes hisstand pretty definitely in the tra­dition of the British utilitarianmoralists, beginning with Humeand proceeding through AdamSmith, Bentham, and Mill. Thereis also a dash of pragmatism, sug­gestive of Benjamin Franklin andWilliam James, in his view thatthere is seldom a clash betweenmorality and happiness - that, inhis own words, "immoral actionis almost always shortsightedaction."

Mr. Hazlitt sees in generally ac~

cepted rules of moral conduct aninstrument for eliminating clashesbetween individuals and also be­tween the individual and society.Believing that the word utilitar­ianism has perhaps outlived itsusefulness, he calls his own eth­ical system by a new term, co­operatism.

Rejecting extremes of egoism

9

10 THE FREEMAN March

and altruism, he rejects as a falseantithesis the question whethermoral rules should be framed topromote the long-run happinessof the individual or the long-runhappiness of society. For, as heargues, only a rule that would dothe first would do the second, andvice versa. Society is the individ­uals that compose it. If eachachieves happiness, the happinessof society is necessarily achieved.

Author's Advantages

In considering public, as dis­tinguished from private ethics,Mr. Hazlitt enjoys an advantageover his eighteenth and nineteenthcentury predecessors. Socialismand communism are no longertheories, of which the validity canbe neither proved nor disprovedby actual experience. Now aboutone-third of the world's popula­tion lives under communist rule,and a considerable number ofother states have introduced vary­ing degrees of socialism.

In view of the author's lifelongpreoccupation with economics, itis not surprising that two of themost vigorous and incisive chap­ters in his book are devoted tothe ethics of capitalism and theethics of socialism, which heequates, as did Karl Marx, withcommunism. He comes close tothe heart of the question whenhe remarks that the central issue

between capitalism and socialismis liberty, and expands this ideawith a significant quotation fromFriedrich Hayek:

"Free enterprise has developedthe only kind of society which,while it provides us with amplematerial means, if that is whatwe mainly want, still leaves theindividual free to choose betweenmaterial and nonmaterial reward.. .. Surely it is unjust to blamea system as more materialisticbecause it leaves it to the individ­ual to decide whether he prefersmaterial gain to other kinds ofexcellence, instead of having thisdecided for him."

Five Characteristics

Mr. Hazlitt lists as follows fivebasic characteristics of the freeeconomy:. Private property, freemarket, competition, division andcombination of labor, and socialcooperation. And he established aclose, intimate relationship be­tween the free economy and themaintenance of morality and civ­ilization. For free enterprise ispossible only within a frameworkof law and order and morality.Not only does free enterprise pre­suppose morality; it also helps topreserve and promote it, most ofall by making possible the free­dom of choice, which is a basiccharacteristic of any meaningfulethical system.

1965 A MORAL CODE FOR RATIONAL MAN 11

Immoralism of Communism

The author emphasizes the basicimmoralism of communism, thecontempt for ordinary rules ofdecent conduct expressed in thewritings of Marx, Lenin, andStalin. It is not the least of thevirtues of the free enterprise sys­tem that it makes for toleranceand discourages the fanatical will­ingness to sacrifice all principlesof humane conduct in the nameof an abstract goal to be realizedat some time in the future.

Mr. Hazlitt does not hesitate tograsp the nettle of the "ratherRed than dead" slogan. If thealternative were submission tocommunist slavery or the prospectof destruction in nuclear war,many of us, as he says, wouldchoose annihilation as the lesserevil. But the alternative is false.When President Kennedy took afirm stand against Soviet missilesin Cuba, he improved the long­range prospects of peace. And, asMr. Hazlitt says, appeasement onthe part of the West, in the faceof Soviet threats, merely increasesthe danger to the West. And hedrives home this point with alittle parable, "Johnny and theTiger," which he originally pub­lished in The Saturday EveningPost and which is worthy ofGeorge Orwell, in the vein ofAnimal Farm.

Mr. Hazlitt has composed anexcellent manual of conduct fora rational and humane society. Ifthere is a fault in the work, it isperhaps inadequate considerationof the forces in human naturewhich make for irrationality andinhumanity.

Mystics receive scant considera­tion from Mr. Hazlitt and onemisses some discussion of thephilosophic Roman Emperor, Mar­cus Aurelius, perhaps the mostinspiring of stoic thinkers. Thework stands squarely in the frame­work of British common-sense ra­tionalism of the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries, supplement­ed by such modern libertarianthinkers as Friedrich Hayek andLudwig von Mises.

For its erudition, its exposureof the fallacies .of statism andpolitical and economic coercion,its smooth development of a sys­tem of practical ethics that isclosely linked with jurisprudenceand economics, The Foundationsof Morality deserves a high ratingamong the many books that havebeen the fruits of Mr. Hazlitt'slong and distinguished career asa publicist. Its appearance is anexcellent accompaniment to theauthor's recent celebration of hisseventieth birthday. ~

Reprinted by permission from The Wall StreetJournal of December 23, 1964.

The Failure of

International

CO:DlDlodity AgreeDlents

KARL BRANDT

IT IS, if I am not mistaken, thegoal of all free countries with gov­ernment by law to diminish pov­erty, squalor, and drudgery forthe greatest number of their citi­zens, and to .expand opportunitiesto all self-respecting, responsiblecitizens to develop their personalpotential. This goal includes theobligation of the nation to respectthe dignity and integrity of allmen of good will.

If this national goal is accepted,the economy must have the in­stitutional framework to promotethe gradual improvement of thereal income of the people by im­proving the productivity of hu­man, natural, and man-made re­sources. This requires, in the pro­duction of goods and services,more division of labor, speciali-

Dr. Brandt, former Director of the FoodResearch Institute of Stanford University, isSenior Research Fellow and Economic Con­sultant at the Hoover Institution on War,Revolution, and Peace. This is a slight con­densation of the· English version of his firstaddress as a foreign member of the Academied'Agriculture of France, delivered in Paris inFrench, May 27, 1964.

12

zation, and increased efficiencyfrom research, innovation, andbetter management. But in orderto have some orientation for suchendeavor it is essential to give theconsumer the sovereign powerto allocate resources to the satis­faction of his needs and of hismore and more refined wants. Thisprovides the powerful incentive toall people to make the effort toearn the money to get the goodsand services they want. Such anarrangement is ideally guaranteedin the market with freely movingprices by the daily plebiscite inwhich housewives and the con­sumer in general express theirpreference in francs and centimes,or dollars and cents.

In the modern economy, inwhich this allocation of resourcesapplies to all goods, durable andnondurable, to houses and motorvehicles, and to all services - edu­cational, medical, culinary, artis­tic, and to entertainment, travel,insurance, recreation, and multi-

1965 THE_FAILURE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMODITY AGREEMENTS 13

tudes of others - economic growthis bound to accelerate and to be­come all-pervasive. Such dynamicgrowth, to be stable and contin­uous, requires a high degree ofmobility of human resources, suchas shifts from the production· ofgoods to the performance of serv­ices.

Such economic growth or de­velopment, which requires aboveall stability of the national cur­rency and the discipline of mone­tary and fiscal policies to keep in­flation in check, calls also for anoptimum of foreign trade. It isgenerally agreed that the promo­tion of peaceful relations in thisturbulent and dynamic world re­quires economic development inall countries, particularly thosewith still predominantly ruralliving conditions. This develop­ment in formerly colonial andother industrially retarded coun­tries is definitely needed for thehealthy development of the ad­vanced nations, because industrialeconomies maintain growth andstability by a reliable flow of es­sential raw materials~

The Need for Leadership

Of all the conditions for in­creasing the income· of the peoplein the world's rural countries,by far the most strategic are con­tinued healthy and stable growthof the leading industrial countries

and their avoidance of prolongedeconomic stagnation or contrac­tion. Any idea of acceleratinggrowth in underdeveloped coun­tries by sapping the strength ofindustrial nations belongs in themoth-eaten fabric of ideas ofMarxian determinism· and the fatamorgana of the dictatorially-ruled"paradise for all proletarians."Since these grand ideas have beentried for close to 40 years in alaboratory experiment with sev­eral hundred million people, theyhave lost their luster and gaudycolors.

Today, the economies of indus­trial and developing countries aremutually interdependent, as is theguardianship of peaceful cohabita­tion of nations. Hence, while theindustrial countries need an ade­quate and growing flow of pri­mary material from developingcountries, they will pay for these,as well as for manufactured goodsfrom light industries, by export­ing to those countries an increas­ing volume of manufactured pro­ducer and consumer goods, andwill also help them to industrializegradually.

If this mutually beneficial ex­change is to. flourish, all nationsmust act in accordance with theiroptimal comparative advantage,Le., the opportunity to produceand sell at lower unit costs. Tolet this principle work requires

14 THE FREEMAN March

optimal diminution or removal ofhindrances to trade expansion,not only import quotas and cus­toms duties but the whole arsenalof nontariff trade impediments inlieu of duties.

All the proposed solutions haveone common denominator. Theysuggest that, by setting up inter­national and regional world-wideadministrative machinery to con­trol and regulate prices for opti­mal financial liquidity of develop­ing countries, the pace of raisingthe income of the poorest peoplein the most agrarian countries canbe accelerated at will, and thatmore perfect equity and justice indistribution among independentnations can be attained.

A Dubious Device

Perhaps the most persuasiveand yet the most dubious proposalto remedy the instability of for­eign exchange earnings of devel­oping countries is the device ofinternational commodity agree­ments, abbreviated in the litera­ture as leA. This form of inter­vention in the international mar­ket for primary commodities is anexcellent example that makes clearwhere the generating power orig­inates that drives a national econ­omy, and how complex and delicatea self-adjusting system the marketeconomy actually is. When I speakof the market economy, I do not

mean a laissez-faire system withno rules, but a competitive privateenterprise economy with effectiveenforcement by the government ofregulations, quality standards, andrules for competition.

International commodity agree­ments are arrangements betweencontracting governments, aimed atpreventing precipitous price de­clines of a primary commodity onthe world market, in order to avoidserious balance of payment andilliquidity problems for the gov­ernments of the exporting coun­tries. But the attempt to forestalldisastrous price declines also de­mands that brakes be put on toosteeply rising prices, because suchincreases may unduly stimulateexpansion of production, with re­sulting sharp price declines later.

This remedy for price instabil­ity consists basically of a type ofmarket intervention that wasadopted in the late twenties andearly thirties on the Europeancontinent, in the United States,and in other parts of the world:farm income support throughguaranteed minimum prices forspecified agricultural commodi­ties. These price support policiesamount to a compulsory govern­ment-controlled cartel, with in­numerable variations in detail.Since more than 30 years of ex­perience with this policy have ac­crued in the industrially advanced

1965 THE FAILURE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMODITY AGREEMENTS 15

countries and in the world market,it is relevant for our discussionto summarize the modus· operandiand the economic results of thisremedial counteraction to priceinstability.

Once the government supportsthe price of a commodity, the pricecan theoretically still move, butonly above the so-called "floor" orguaranteed minimum. By politicalcompromise this level is deliberate­ly set above equilibrium, whichby definition is the price thatwould clear the market. The polit­ically set level is meant to be re­munerative to the high cost ormarginal producers, the low in­come farmers on whose behalfprice stabilization is mainly es­tablished. It is therefore unavoid­able that the price, and the elimi­nation of any risk of its changeby government guarantee, will actas a forceful incentive, especiallyto efficient producers, to expandthe area for the specific crop. Tocounteract this the governmentimposes an area limit, the so-called"acreage allotment." Some sort ofbase is needed for its determina­tion; usually a historical base ischosen, such as each farmer's ac­tual average acreage of the cropcultivated in several base years.However, the common experiencein all countries is that the combi­nation of a profitable guaranteedprice with the acreage allotment

acts as a still more effective in­centive for increasing output perunit of land on limited acreageby more intensive farming. Morefertilizer, better seed, more irri­gation, better pest and weed con­trol, more cultivation, and variousother methods are used. Hence,the government has to buy andstore more grain to keep the priceat the support level.

The Sorry Results

Up to this point the results ofthis intervention are already re­markable:

1. There is no longer any mobil­ity of the geographical location ofproduction. It is frozen from themoment the allotments are estab­lished.

2. The unintentionally subsi­dized intensification of productionhas created surpluses that exceedeffective demand.

3. Therefore, the governmenthas to finance and operate storageof commodity stockpiles.

4. Hence, the government attaxpayers' expense has enteredthe commodity business.

5. The price can no longer moveupward but is tightly pinned tothe "floor." Instead of a price sup­port or the guarantee of a mini­mum price, one has a fixed, totallyinflexible price.

6. This fixed price still governsproducers, processors, everybody

16 THE FREEMAN Ma,rch

in the trade chain, and consumers.The price signals are set in falseposition for all of them. Althoughan excess supply exists, everybodycan act only according to the pricewhich indicates shortage, namelyby consuming less, by substitutingother commodities. The processorsand the speculative trade reducestock carrying because the gov­ernment keeps the excess stocksat public expense.

7. In other words: without anyintent to do so, the governmenthas socialized stock carrying.

8. As a further result, the mosteffective commodity price and sup­ply stabilizing institution, the com­modity exchange with its tradingin future delivery contracts, ismade idle.

However, even those are by nomeans all the side effects. TheTreasury has to pay for movingthe commodity into and out ofstorage and for storing it, as wellas for losses when the surplus isdisposed of. Thus, there are in­numerable secondary beneficiariesof stockpiling excess output, suchas railroads, truckers, labor unionmembers, and many others. Allthese receivers of windfalls ac­quire a vested interest in main­taining farm price supports. Muchworse is the fact that the marketin farm real estate discounts thesubsidy-earning value of the acre­age allotment. Hence, price stabili-

zation of farm products boosts thevalue of farm land; in due timehigher land prices and rents onleased land increase the costs offarming and force more intensiveuse. This is another unintentionalside effect.Marketing Quotas Assigned

When the excess production be­gins to bleed the Treasury too bad­ly, the next step is to tighten thecartel by efforts to control thesupply in the market. In additionto the acreage allotment the gov­ernment imposes on all farms amarketing quota, which is estab­lished by subdividing a nationalquota prorated in accordance withindividual acreage allotments. Thisnational quota is fixed by a pre­carious government estimate ofhow large the domestic consump­tion and the net export may beone year later. Since the market­ing quota tends to be smaller thanthe output, it immediately posesthe problem of a black market andthe necessity of suppressing it byheavy penalties. Output that ex­ceeds the marketing quota can bestored, converted, or consumed bythe farmer, but it cannot be mar­keted legally. Even in countrieswith a customarily law-abidingfarm population, the temptation toprofit by disposing of such illegalsupply by barter or other blackdeals is strong, and actual enforce­ment is difficult.

1965 THE FAILURE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMODITY AGREEMENTS 17

The cartel price-fixing for agri­cultural commodities also unin­tentionally subsidizes increasedproduction of thesame commodityin other countries. Price-fixingthus creates effective competitionabroad. Since it is politically un­popular and difficult to lower theguaranteed price level even whencosts of production are declining,stabilization by political decisionis practically identical with "sta­bilizing upward."

Finally, the greatest ordeal forthe government agency responsiblefor operating the cartel is the ob­ligation to dispose of the accumu­lated excess stocks so as not to un­dermine the fixed price. Such dis­posal would be simple if it weredone by destroying the supply.Grain could be burned or dumpedin the ocean, although even thiscosts money. But powerful social,moral, and political taboos preventthis solution for any major non­perishable food commodity. Onlyin the case of coffee in Brazil wasdestruction used as· a market-cor­rective action. Therefore, the gov­ernment must seek to release theexcess of staple food commoditiesin foreign countries as gifts, oncredit, or with lowered prices. Ex­cept for the gifts, this amounts todumping,and has a deleteriousimpact upon producers in the re­cipient country, and secondarilyon the exporting country's foreign

markets and on its foreign eco­nomic relations.

A Commodity in QuarantineStill Affects the Market

It is a psychological fact thata commodity kept off the marketby a· government, in quarantine,so to say, is still a powerful factorinffuencing both the price and theactions of all parties in the mar­ket. Grain "in jail" is still grain,because if it is not destroyed itwill in due time appear as marketsupply.

National commodity markets area remarkably effective system ofcommunicating vessels in whichmillions of interested consumers,retailers, wholesalers, speculators,and farmers keep the flow going.The idea of inserting into the mar­ket, via detours, major quantitiesof supply, under perfect quaran­tine or segregated from the or­dinary supply, belongs in the realmof fiction. Only private charitydistribution can minimize the im­pact on the market. Even the ablyadministrated food stamp plan ofthe late thirties in the UnitedStates proved that free food didnot cause additional consumptionof food, but actually subsidizedconsumption of other goods andservices. To change the determinedconsumer's preference in his fam­ily budget decisions takes farmore than free distribution of

18 THE FREEMAN March

goods, the more so the poorer andprouder he is.

The cartel operation producesstill other undesirable side effects.In many instances, particularly forindustrial raw material productsin agriculture such as cotton, jute,hemp, and sisal, the raised fixedprice gives the greatest incentiveto producers of substitutes. Thisexerts pressure on consumptionof the original product, say cotton,at the expense of the farmer,whose marketing quota will be cutif national consumption shrinks.

The industrial temperate zonecountries, which make a virtue outof the backwash of domestic polit­ical necessity and subsidize ex­ports of agricultural raw ma­terials such as cotton, thereby slideto the next necessity of grantingmore subsidies. Manufacturers ofcotton textiles, who have to com­pete in the foreign market as wellas in the domestic one, now needa subsidy to restore equal raw ma­terial costs. And so there are threerecipients of subsidies: the fal~m­

er; the exporter of the farm prod­uct; and the manufacturer whouses the raw material.

However, I have not nearly ex­hausted the appalling record ofunforeseen and unwanted distor­tions of economic processes causedby government intervention thatattempts to remedy instability ofcommodity prices. Subsidized sur-

plus disposal by gifts diverted toother countries can assist privatecharity that reaches the destitute,the sick, and helpless widows andorphans. But it cannot cure thecauses of poverty. Only increasedproductivity on farms, in craft­shops, in factories, and in thewholesale and retail trade can dothat. It is here that the disposalof surpluses from abroad does itsgreatest harm. The majority ofpeople in underdeveloped countriesare small farmers who earn theircash income by selling farm com­modities. Dumping such commodi­ties in their market may be a boonto some of their customers in thecities, but the farmers resent it,and it diminishes the incentive forthem to produce more.

One Control leads to Others

I have yet to give the reasonswhy I believe that, whatever ac­tion may be taken to mitigate theimpact of unstable commodityprices on the balance of paymentsof developing countries, the In­ternational Commodity Agreementmethod is not only inadequate anddubious but outright harmful tothe best interests of the developingcountries and to world tradein general. BasicallY, the soberingexperience of sovereign govern­ments of advanced nations withthis enigmatic cartel policy intheir national markets applies also

1965 THE FAILURE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMODITY AGREEMENTS 19

to the immeasurably more difficultsituation in the international com­modity market.

The worst feature of all marketintervention with price fixing isthat, while dealing with one com­modity or a few closely relatedcommodities, this inevitablychanges the relations between theprice of the regulated commodityand the prices of all other com­modities and services. The inser­tion of one rigid price into a rangeof flexible prices for some 160 or170 agricultural products is likea boy who knows n-othing aboutthe meaning or the effects of thedifferent positions turningswitches at the control board ofan automated factory. The far­reaching adjustments that farmersand all other affected parties mustmake to the accidental price rela­tionships caused by fixing theprice of one commodity are un­predictable. Therefore, such iso­lated treatment of the price mech­anism for one country contributesmore uncertainty tomorrow thanthere was instability prior to pricefixing. The case for all such trou­ble-multiplying cures rests on theassertion that the adjustment ofsupply and demand under the ruleof flexible prices does not func­tion - an assertion that contra­dicts all evidence and economicexperience.

The intent of stabilization is

realized so long as the stabiliza­tion is upward. When, however,larger stocks have been accumu­lated and their disposal is unavoid­able, the same consequences ariseas in the case of price supports indomestic markets. Necessity com­mands that besides regular com­mercial sales, concessional salesbe undertaken, or part of the sup­ply be given away. This procedureleads to serious disorganizationand corrosion of markets. TheUnited States, with $6 billionworth of agricultural exports, dis­poses of over 30 per cent in theform of concessional deals. Thisis not done on principle. Far fromit. It is simply the accumulatedbackwash of an ill-chosen methodof social income support.

Enforcement of ICA regulationsis even more difficult than is en­forcement in single countries.When one begins to speak of "po­licing the markets of coffee beans,"I wonder how one dares suggestthe feasibility of such control invast areas where the United Na­tions is faced with the problem ofpreventing the murder of ruralpeople by armed bands.

Problems of the Soard

Aside from the dubious state ofeffective government administra­tion, a serious question is whethercompeting countries can possiblyagree on export or production

20 THE FREEMAN March

quotas and thus freeze the geo­graphical location of production,or administer shifts in location.The board of an ICA must try toachieve principles of equity andjustice for all signatory partiesto the multigovernment cartel.Originally, commodity agreementsincluded exporting countries onlyand thus represented producer in­terests exclusively. They led to de­fensive policies by importing coun­tries and their effect was nullified.Naturally, the enthusiasm of pro­ducers diminished as consumerswon equal representation on ICAboards. Yet, without importinggovernments, such cartels aredoomed.

Today, all such agreements in­clude major importing as well asexporting countries. This demandsfar more wisdom than the fairestand ablest board possesses. Sup­pose one exporter earns 80 percent of foreign exchange from thecommodity, another 20 per cent.When quota restrictions are neces­sary to raise the price, will the ex­ports from both countries be cutby the same percentage? If not,what principle shall determine thedegree of discrimination and thenumber of years it shall last? Ifdrastic changes in costs of pro­duction or handling or transporta­tion of the regulated commodityoccur, which apply to one or morecountries but not to all, shall all

nevertheless receive the sameprice? If the commodity comprisesa range of qualities, with lowergrades produced at disproportion­ately lower costs, shall quotas treatall the same? Such questionsindicate that ICA's are bound toend up with all kinds of soft politi­cal compromises on the main pointsof control over supply, and evenof price arrangements.

Subsidizing the Competition

As soon as there is a seriouscontingency of substitution for thecommodity by other natural, proc­essed, or synthetic products, ICAprice stabilization begins to soundthe death knell for. the originalcommodity. I indicated earlierthat in many cases price supportsoperate, via detours of economicprocesses, to the long-run detri­ment of the cartelized producers.To prove my point that ICA's maybecome deadly poison I have onlyto mention the cases of rubber,wool, linseed oil, or tungnut oil.

Natural rubber was one of thecommodities on which price sta­bilization ideas were tested in aworld -wide experiment underDutch and British management.The attempted producer-exportercartel was mainly instrumental inpushing rubber plantations intoother tropical areas, in stimulatingexperiments with other latex-yield­ing crops, and in boosting synthet-

1965 THE FAILURE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMODITY AGREEMENTS 21

ic production of plastomers withlarge government subsidies in in­dustrial countries. To kill theremaining industrial use of lin­seed oil, tungnut oil, or soybeanoil, one need only fix the pricesinternationally.

Five ICA's are at present inexistence: on wheat, sugar, coffee,olive oil, and tin. Only four, ex­cluding olive oil, are important.The one for wheat is proclaimedby its supporters the outstandingsuccess. It can be proved beyonddiscussion that the ICA's forwheat, sugar, and coffee amountto no more than· sanctimoniousdeclarations of good intentions.They have neither stabilized theincomes of the exporting countriesnor avoided the whole range ofunintentional distortions of worldtrade that do far more harm thangood. Insofar as the wheat agree­ment has given some semblance ofstabilizing price - though not in­come - it was due to the fact thatthe governments of the UnitedStates and Canada shouldered theburden of carrying the giganticexcess stocks. But both govern­ments have had to enter into amultitude of noncommercial dis­posal arrangements that violatethe principles of truly competitiveinternational trade.

There is one little defect in allplans for administering economicprogress at specified growth rates,

which the econometricians usuallyfail to mention: no genius, nopower in this world, has the abil­ity to forecast the future supply,the demand, or the price for anycommodity, or to predict the per­formance of one or of many na­tional economies one, three, orfive years from now. The mostfabulous computers have notchanged this situation one bit.We now know much faster andmore accurately what has hap­pened up to today. But as to thefuture, we get the wrong guess­timates also much faster, and withmore scientistic trimming.

Restrictive compulsory cartelpolicies that raise prices to bene­fit high cost producers and arti­ficially throttle output and supplyto maintain such arbitrarily fixedprices, belong in the tool chest ofthe static society and its dirigism.Such policies are technically pos­sible, but they are the antithesisof what the dynamic economy ofan open and free humane societyrequires.

I expect much sound develop­ment in those primary materialexporting countries that succeedin taming the monster inflationand, relying on their producers'ability to compete, pave the wayfor sound private investment offoreign capital, as the transfer offunds from government to govern­ment diminishes. ~

THE CENSUS of 1960 turned up onehundred and ninety million soulsliving in these United States. Ofthis number, roughly one hundredand eight million qualify to regis­ter as voters. This is 56 per centof the nation, and this body ofpeople constitutes the electorate ofthe United States. But, of thenumber of persons eligible toregister, only eighty-one millionhave actually done so; twenty­seven million have not, for rea­sons ranging from indifference tointimidation. The total vote castin the 1964 Presidential sweep­stakes was roughly sixty-nine mil­lion. This is 64 per cent of theelectorate, but it is only 36 percent of the population. The 1964election was won by a candidatewho garnered forty-two millionvotes. This figure translates into60 per cent of the votes cast, 51

The Reverend Mr. Opitz of the Foundationstaff is active as a lecturer and seminar leader.

22

EDMUND A. OPITZ

per cent of the registered voters,38 per cent of the electorate, andonly 22 per cent of the population.This is "the majority" which, inthe eyes of some political theor­ists, confers a mandate on thevictorious party to impose its pro­gram on the reluctant "minority"of the nation, that is, on the other78 per cent!

This is the theory of majori­tarianism, ardently espoused bysome articulate intellectuals. Here,for example, is Professor JamesMcGregor Burns of Williams Col­lege. Dr. Burns declares that " ...as a liberal I believe in majorityrule and majority rule is a ques­tion of adding up 'bodies' (or, Ihope, adding up minds)." Profes­sor Burns believes that men whoembrace the conservative positionhave thereby foresworn what hecalls the numbers game, this gamehaving been staked out by liberalsas their very own. "Because as

1965 WINNER TAKE ALL 23

soon as conservatives start to basetheir principles on numbers," hewrites, "then they're playing theliberal game (what they call theliberal game; what I would callsubordinating their basic valuesto a liberal premise, which is thepremise of majority rule)."

It may be conceded that a "ma­jority" has, by definition, thepower to bull its way through andwork its will on the nation,but does it have the right to dothis? Is there not some principleor right or rule of ethics whicheven a "majority" ought to ac­knowledge, and to which it shouldyield? Addressing himself to thisquestion, Professor Burns re­phrases it and then gives hisanswer. "What does a majorityhave the right to do?" he asks. "Ithas the right to do anything inthe economic and social arena thatis relevant to our national prob­lems and national purposes - ex­cept to change the basic rules ofthe game."

Unqualified Majority Rule

That final disclaimer soundslike an afterthought, and somepolitical theorists support the ma­jority rule idea without qualifica­tion. Professor Herman Finer ofthe University of Chicago, for in­stance, writes, "For in a democ­racy right is what the majoritymakes it to be." In other words,

the majority has the power to car­ry out its will, and thus whateverit does is all right; its programis right, by definition.

If so, then the liberals, by win­ning an election, have won theright to run the country as theyplease - including, Burns sug­gests, the right to be let alone byconservatives! The liberals nowhave a majority of the nation be­hind them, Professor Burns as­serts, and "I want the liberals ofthe nation to have a right to rulein what I think is their day to­day."

Professor Burns seems not tohave noticed, but in saying thishe has abandoned the majorityrule idea for the more excitingnotion of Winner Take All! In thepolitics of winner-take-all - whichis modern liberalism - officials be­gin to treat public office as theirown private property, with bene­fits for them to enjoy but withoutthe responsibilities owners assumein rightful property relationships.The national govel'"nment becomesan article of commerce whosecapture is worth over a hundredbillion dollars annually to thosewho gain possession of it. Thosewho win an election, even by theslimmest of margins, have a man­date from the country - providedthey are liberals! -to impose theirprogram on the whole nation. Itis amusing that those who begin

24 THE FREEMAN March

by playing the numbers game inpolitics wind up with a mathe­matical absurdity; a majority, 51per cent, is - in their book - notonly equal to the whole, 100 percent, but superior to it!

This is what the idea of major­ity rule boils down to. Statedbaldly, it is absurd, but it is dif­ficult to examine the notion of ma­jority rule coldly because most ofus are scared off by what majori­tarians say are the alternatives tomajority rule. Those who questionmajority rule are emphatically notthereby committed to minorityrule, or one man rule, or rule byan elite - or any other kind ofrule .,- meaning by "rule" the sub­ordination of some to the will ofof another. These are false an­titheses, for all varieties of ruleare on the same side of the ledger.On the other side of the ledger isthe proper alternative to all spe­cies of rule, namely, the system ofindi.vidual liberty. The system ofliberty stands in contrast to ma­jority rule,minority rule, and allother forms of rule. Individualliberty within a proper spiritual,moral, and legal framework is inone category; majority rule is inanother. And the two categoriesmust not be confused. When thealternatives are spelled out, thatis to say, when we understand theimplications of majority rule, onthe one hand, and the implications

of a system of liberty on theother, some will choose the for­mer, others the latter. But obvi­ously we cannot make an intelli­gent choice if there is confusionas to what we are choosing.

Second-Class Citizens

What does majoritarianismmean? Whenever a society subor­dinates every other principle tothe principle of majority rule-orwhatever the label authoritarian­ism may assume - it winds upwith a political arrangement inwhich winner takes all; and thepolitics of winner-take-all resultsin a society with a permanentbody of second-class citizens, aservile society. If a majority ofthe voters, 51 per cent, controlsthe whole society, then the 49per cent ,vho lose the election areprevented from exercising theirfull citizenship rights. I do notmean to say that the losers arecompletely deprived of theirrights, for this is not the case;but the losers - merely by comingout second best in an election­no longer have the same rights asthe victors. Some rights remain,but there is no longer equalityof rights, and this is the criticalpoint.

An illustration may make thisclearer, an illustration from thefield of religion, where the oldprinciple of equality of rights is

1965 WINNER TAKE ALL 25

still pretty much intact. Supposethat my denomination, Congrega­tionalism, were to grow and growuntil, numerically, we were toconstitute a majority of the elec­torate. Then suppose we decidedto play the game of winner-take­all politics (as we once did, as amatter of fact, and kept on doingin Massachusetts, until 1833). Wewould win a national election anduse· the fact of victory at the pollsto "establish" this denomination.Now that we are "established" weare able to levy taxes on Meth­odists, Baptists, Catholics, andHoly Rollers, and force you tocontribute to our support. Wewould not, of course, close thedoors of your churches, nor for­bid you to attend services when­ever you chose. All we'd do isdeprive you of part of your in­come and property, and then we'duse your income and your prop­erty to promulgate our doctrines.If 10 or 15 per cent of your in­come is being spent by us to fur­ther our purposes, it's obviousthat you have that much lessmoney to spend on your own pro­grams.

Not Religious Freedom

Now, money is not everythingin religion, but it is something.It takes money to build churchesand keep them up; it takes moneyto train and support ministers; it

takes money to print hymnbooksand textbooks and send out mis­sionaries, and so on. And it isobvious that your religious pro­gram will suffer to the extent thatwe force you to pay for our pro­gram. There is a sense in whichyou are still free to practice yourreligion, but you are not fully freeto practice it; your religious lib­erty has been impaired.

Most people would say, as amatter of fact, that the society Ihave conjured up in my illustra­tion does not have religious lib­erty. And anyone who argued­in defense of this arrangement-­that the Methodists and Baptistsshouldn't complain, but rathershould work toward becoming amajority so that they too couldoperate a racket, would be hooteddown, and properly so. The be­liever in religious liberty will notsettle for an ecclesiastical ar­rangement which invariably putsminority religions at a disadvan­tage; he wants full freedom forall. Nor will the believer in polit­ical liberty settle for a theorywhich contemplates a permanentcategory of second class citizen­ship as an intrinsic part of itsoperation. And yet this is pre..cisely what present-day liberalismstands for; this is what it offersus as the latest thing in politicsand morals!

No majority had the right, un-

26 THE FREEMAN March

del" our original system, to im­pose its religion on any minority,or impair its freedom of utter­ance, or deprive it of property.But under the new dispensation"The Majority" is almighty. Allit has to do is gain control of gov­ernment and then it has a legalcloak behind which an actual nu­merical minority of the nationuses the governmental machineryto work its will on the rest of thesociety. According to the theoryof majority rule, the governmentalmachinery is always "up forgrabs" for such a purpose.

Neglected Questions

Collectivist regimes act as if theapparatus of government were theprivate property of officeholders,through which these men exercisetheir ownership of a country, andtheir power over the lives of thecitizenry. The excuse offered isthat "we are doing it to our­selves." What a misuse of lan­guage this· is! If Methodists aredoing it to Baptists or Congrega­tionalists to Presbyterians, it isobvious that some people are do­ing something to other people;"we" aren't doing it to "our­selves." The "we" who are doingit aren't the same people as the"ourselves" to whom it is done!

Those who put their trust inmajoritarianism proclaim thatthere is no other test of the good-

ness of a law than its ability tomuster the might of the majoritybehind it. Any law that has ma­jority support is a good law, bydefinition, and there is no othertest. By the same token, govern­ment's role is to perform what­ever services a majority demandsof it, and short of not killing thegoose, the majority is entitled toall the golden eggs it can get.

I have analyzed and condemnedthis doctrine; it deviates fromearlier American practices, as wellas from sound principles of polit­ical philosophy. Majoritarianismgives wrong answers to questionsabout the proper role of govern­ment in society, and it neglectsquestions about the attributes ofgood law.

The Prescribed Limits

Noone can read our Constitu­tion without concluding that thepeople who wrote it wanted theirgovernment severely limited; thewords "no" and "not" employedin restraint of governmentalpower occur 24 times in the firstseven articles of the Constitutionand 22 more times in the Bill ofRights. Why this distrust, andwhat was their intention? Thesemen understood the necessity ofthe police power in a society. Butthey recognized its potential dan­ger, as well, and so they designedthe machinery for keeping their

1965 WINNER TAKE ALL 27

government limited to the per­formance of policing functions.The police power is, ideally, com­petent to maintain the peace andorder of the community, which iswhat the policing of a societymeans. If the police power - gov­ernment - is limited to policing,then the society is free; the publicsector is small and well defined,the private sector is large enoughto give peaceful people plenty ofelbow room.

The Constitution designed afederal republic with both ter­ritorial and numerical representa­tion. It is improper to refer to thegovernment in Washington as "thefederal government"; it· is the na­tional government. The federalstructure is comprised of the na­tional government plus the gov­ernments of the sovereign states.Government is the power struc­ture of society, and federalismlimits power by dividing it be­tween nation and states. Poweris divided still further by separat­ing functions within the severalgovernments. The federal struc­ture deals with the problem ofpower in much the same way asa Gothic cathedral handles archi­tectural stresses. The enormousweight of the roof of one of thesemedieval structures presses out­ward against the walls and wouldlevel them, except for the flyingbuttresses which exert an equal

pressure inward to maintain thebuilding in a dynamic equilibrium.A national government tends toextend its sway over a whole na­tion unless its centrifugal forceis countered by the centripetalforce exerted by the states andthe congressional districts.

The Philosopher-King

The structural complexity of theAmerican system of governmentmakes sense if we understand thepremises of those who created it.They were concerned to limit andcramp the style of government inorder to hamstring the provencapacity of men in power to doevil. The rather awkward ma­chinery they put together mayoffend against elegance, but itserves admirably the purpose forwhich it was designed. It is not,however, an efficient, streamlinedpolitical mechanism, such as wouldbe erected by those who believegovernment should be unfetteredand strengthened in order to givethe wise men who wield thispower increased opportunity fordoing good. This idea goes backto Plato's Philosopher King.

The Philosopher-King idea isfirst to create elaborate and pow­erful governmental machinery,capable of running society and do­ing wonderful things for The Peo­ple, and then to put the wisestand best men in control. This ap-

28 THE FREEMAN March

proach was repudiated in the Con­stitution, by the most sophisticat­ed political thinking on record.This thought is premised on theunderstanding that human natureis such that if power situationsare deliberately created, the worstmen will gravitate toward them,and such good men as are givenarbitrary power will be corruptedby it. At stake here are two con­trasting estimates of man.

Two Views of Man

What is your reading of humannature and the consequences ofpower? Optimists and utopianstend to think in terms of erectinglarge and powerful structures ofgovernment with wise and goodmen in charge. Overlooking thecorruption in human nature theydream of the benefits which mightflow from such an arrangement.Realists, on the other hand, willtry to limit the power of govern­ment in order to forestall evil menfrom snatching control of it anddoing great harm. A federal re­public along the lines of the Amer­ican model is the product of thisoutlook. "When it comes to ques­tions of power," wrote Jefferson,"let no more be heard of the good­ness of man, but bind him downfrom mischief by the chains ofthe Constitution."

The very structure of constitu­tional government, then, reflects

a philosophy of man; the politicalmachinery itself disperses powerand thus limits it. Then, those inthe old-fashioned Whig and Class­ical Liberal tradition placed fur­ther controls on power by layingdown the earmarks of good law.They may be briefly summarized.In the first place, a good law makesno pretensions to perfection. Nohuman laws are in fact perfect, andthe attempts of some to apply their"perfect" laws to imperfect hu­man beings have been disastrous.A good la\v will take human short­comings into account; it will re­flect our limited understandingand sinful nature.

In the second place, a good lawwill be written so as to correspondto what the eighteenth centuryreferred to as the Higher Law. Agood law, in other words, will notviolate our ethical code; it willnot supplant morality with merelegality.

Equality before the Law

Generality is a feature of a goodlaw. Everyone should be equal be­fore the bar of justice, and so agood law is one which applies toall men alike and without excep­tion. Men are different in severalimportant ways; some are brightand some dull; some are rich,others are poor. There are dif­ferences of nationality, color, andreligion; there are employers and

1965 WINNER TAKE ALL 29

employees, and so on. These areimportant distinctions and clas­sifications - but not to the law!The law should be blind to suchdifferences,and any law which isgeneral, applying to one man asto all cannot have much wrongwith it. Fairness in applicationcoupled with proper enforcementinduces respect for law and makesfor a high level of law observance.

Besides being imperfect, moral,and general, a good law is condi­tional; it has an "iffy" qualityabout it. It says, if you steal, or ifyou defraud, or if you drive on theleft side of the road, you will bepunished. A good law takes theside of the negative, saying"Don't," or "Thou shalt not." Thismeans that it is theoretically pos­sible for a man to negotiate lifew'ithout encountering the law, pro­vided he sticks to the positive. Thefifth and final point in this abbrevi­ated list is something like the first;a good law reflects the customs andhabits of a people - otherwise itis an attempt to reform them bylaw, and reformist lawis bad law.

When a man thinks he's Napo­leon, and acts on that assumption,the rest of us lock him up out of

harm's way. Things aren't so sim­ple when a whole society is smit­ten by ideas of grandeur. Whena society projects its Napoleonicfantasies onto government, thepicture unfolds much as we haveobserved it during recent history.Current history has given manysensitive people the jitters, as any­one can confirm for himself whowill inspect the present offeringsof our poets, playwrights, andartists. They testify to an epi­demic sense of alienation and con­flict. Man, they say, is at war withhis own creations; he can't getalong with his fellows, and he'sat odds with himself. The modernmalaise is not, of course, primarilypolitical, but if it disposes us toretrace our steps to the pointwhere we'd seriously overhaul ourunderstanding of man's natureand his destiny, important polit­ical consequences would follow.Appraise man realistically andgovernments would lose their Na­poleonic pretensions. Limit gov­ernments to policing functionsand, although that alone wouldn'tsolve social problems, these wouldthen challenge rather thanthreaten us. And challenge is justwhat we need to grow on! ~

N or Oysters fromThe DesertSands

JOHN C. SPARKS

COMMUNITY LEADERS, striving "toget their share" of Federal fundsfor local projects to alleviate slumconditions and improve the city,are doomed to disappointment. Forit is a law of nature that evil be­gets evil, regardless of good in­tentions, and no matter how oftenthe mistake is repeated.

Recent comprehensive studies ofthe results of government urbanrenewal programs reveal that slumdwellers displaced from theirhomes are likely to find even worsehousing accommodations else­where, and frequently at highercost than they paid before.!

1 "The federal urban renewal programhas made it more difficult for low andmiddle-income groups to obtain housingbecause of the amount of low-rent hous­ing destroyed. Many of the families thatare required to move go into housing asbad as or worse than their original homes

Mr. Sparks is a business executive of Canton,Ohio.

30

From Barron's of July 27, 1964,comes this editorial summation:"In short, the most strikingachievement of urban renewal,whether in Stamford or San Fran­cisco, Kansas City or Brooklyn,has been the wholesale· bulldozingof human and property rights....Under urban renewal more specu­lative profits than slums have beencleared.... Far from reducing thenumber of slum dwellers, it hasswelled their number."

Not only are residents of low­income homes being pushed aroundwithout regard to their rights, butalso the small businessmen whoadequately serve these and othersimilar neighborhoods have found

in neighborhoods that are as bad or worsethan "their original neighborhoods. Andthey often pay higher rents at the newlocation." The Federal Bulldozer by Mar­tin Anderson (The M.I:r. Press, Massa­chusetts Institute of Technology, Cam­bridge, Mass., 1964), p. 220.

1965 NOR OYSTERS FROM THE DESERT SANDS 31

it impossible to continue in busi­ness under urban renewal. PeterH. Prugh reports in The WallStreet Journal of November 18,1964 ".... the difficulties of theHyde Park - Kenwood urban re-newal neighborhood are typical.It is almost axiomatic that, whenrubble makes its inevitable ap­pearance in urban renewal proj­

ects, small businessmen as inevit­ably begin to disappear."

One could go on and on withexamples of the urban renewal in­justice forced upon those personsalready in the lower economicstrata of society. There is no doubtthat urban renewal, as a means toimprove housing conditions forthese people, has been a dismaldisappointment - though it is tobe expected whenever ownershiprights are violated, whenever self­reliance and self-responsibility arediscouraged, whenever the volun­tary choices of free people in afree market are frustrated.

The Chaotic Consequences

The chaotic result is that peo­ple are displaced from the besthomes they could or would afford.The dispersal of old neighborhoodsmeans broken friendships, removalof familiar faces and places, andthe expiration of local church andsocial centers. Small neighborhoodbusinesses simply disappear. Howsuch chaos affects the lives of

these persons, aside from the eco­nomic losses involved, is next toimpossible to measure.

Leonard Read put it this way:"Damage cannot be done to thefree market without an equal dam­age to man's nature. When menare compelled to look to a one­source decision instead of to theindividuul deeigiong of men, manis robbed of his wholeness. Self­responsibility .... the wellspringof man's growth, gives way tocheap politics, mass plunder ....and members of that society willtend more to rot than to hatch."::?

During a recent seminar dis­cussion on urban rene\\~al, a ques­tion was asked typifying both thesincerity and the gullibility ofthe proponent who allows glitter­ing goals to blind him to the wrongmethods proposed.

Although the questioner hadheard telling arguments and un­impeachable testimony of the fail­ure of the government renewalprogram to bring better livingconditions, he could not bring him­self to face the truth of the situ­ation. Surely, the cause of failurein communities everywhere overthe nation must be due to ineptleadership or lack of administra­tive ability, he rationalized. Con­fident of these reasons for thefailures, and equally confident that

2 "On Freedom and Order," Freeman,January, 1965.

32 THE FREEMAN March

neither of these faults would berepeated in his city, he was sureof the program's success, if onlyhis city would participate - eco­nomic and moral facts of life behanged! His anxiety to help hisfellow man toward better livingconditions clouded his reason.

As an analogy, let us supposethat numerous municipalities allover the country had recently de­cided to run their police cars onwater rather than gasoline. Dueto the national publicity and claimsof success by municipal officials,the local city council considersswitching its patrol cars fromgasoline to water also. In replyto protests, the advocates suggestthat the automotive maintenanceengineers in the other communi­ties, where failures have been ru­mored, surely must have been in­competent and unfit; but the mem­bers of the local city council, beingmen of wisdom, will find a quali­fied automotive engineer who,with their help, will make no mis­takes. Will the switch succeed?No answer is required. The out­come of the scheme is clearlyforeseen and one could not butwonder at the foolishness of itssupporters.

Yet, is not an artificial, unnat­ural substitution of governmenturban renewal for the operation offree enterprise in a free marketjust as clearly unworkable?

A Rational Universe-and Our Lives Depend on It

Man exists in a rational uni­verse, and doubtless would perishif it were not rational. Apple treesgrow apples and can be countedon to produce apples, rather thangrapes or blackberries, next har-vest season. Oysters come fromwaters of the sea, not from thesands of the desert. The seasonsof the year occur in never-endingrotation; never yet has winterfollowed spring. There is a steadycertainty about mathematics. Evenromantic musical tones are ofcertain quality and can be definedby the number of vibrations persecond.

Over the centuries we have cometo know that not all kinds of ac­tion will bring desired results ina rational universe. Only thosecausative actions consistent withthe final results will succeed inproducing them. Thus, the properdesign of an airship will enableit to fly in the manner conceivedby its creators. However, if a de­signer were inept, and an attemptwere made to fly his creation, onecould reasonably expect a fright­ening crash at the end of therunway. Nomatter that the de­signer was enthusiastic and ar­dently wished his airships to fly.No matter that this intent wasgood. Desire alone will not over­come the inconsistency of his

1965 NOR OYSTERS FROM THE DESERT SANDS 33

design with the natural laws ofthe universe - nor will the sin­cerity of his intent prevent theshattering devastation of airplanemetal and human bodies.

Historian Clarence B. Carson,noting that industry, thrift, andfrugality lead to independence, re­wards, increased possessions, andsavings, explains that "these ac­tions are not good because theyhave good consequences; they havegood consequences because theyare good - i.e., that they are inkeeping with the moral order. Self­respect begets respect for others;honor begets honesty; fidelity be­gets faithfulness."3 And the con­verse holds equally true: sincere,well-intended ignorance in theselection of a fallacious meansbegets nothing but despair anddisappointment - evil begets evil!

3 The American Tradition. (Irvington­on-Hudson, New York: The Foundationfor Economic Education, Inc., 1964), p.238.

Expropriation of private prop­erty, without the owner's consent,falls squarely within the definitionof stealing - certainly an immoralaction. Yet, that is the standardprocedure in Federal urban re­newal programs, and the resultsare consistent with the immoralnature of the action, notwith­standing the good intentions ofcivic leaders seeking to providebetter living conditions for resi­dents of slum housing via govern­ment aid. An improper means,consequently and logically, mustyield unhappy results.

One cannot run a gasoline en­gine on water. One cannot put anairship in flight with malformedwings. Elberta peaches will notgrow from a clump of thistles, noroysters from the desert sands. Norcan well-functioning communitiesbe expected to sprout from thegovernment-planned frustration ofthe lives of individuals. ~

State Medication

THE WORST THING that can happen to a working man is to workfor a company that isn't making money. Such a company, notgrowing, can never provide individuals with the security andopportunities they would like to have. The liberal who cries outfor broad welfare measures and state control lacks inherentfaith in people and in our free society. He treats them as thoughthey were some type of chronic disease. As a result his approachhas been one of continuous medication by the state.

L. c. MICHELON, Republic Steel,to NAM Institute on Industrial Relations, 1964

BRINGSFORTHTHE EYE

LEONARD E. READ

THE LONGEST way round maysometimes be the shortest wayhome, even when "home" is thefree market economy and its ideo­logical running mate, individualliberty. My thesis is that mostdevotees of freedom have been at­

tempting an illusory short cut,following a mirage so to speak;whereas the right way to the freesociety is both long and difficult ­but possible.

First, a word of backgroundabout "home," that is, the goalor where it is we want to go.

Our economic world is beingtorn asunder, but so pronouncedis popular opinion to the contrarythat one must insert, "in myopinion," to qualify the j udg­mente But this is, indeed, my opin­ion. Simply observe: The Ameri­can people are turning away fromthe free market; they are lookingmore and more to government fortheir security, welfare, and pros­perity, and calmly accepting the

34

controls incidental thereto. Suchabandonment of self-control infavor of state domination meanseconomic regression over the longpull.!

In view of this unmistakableand continuing trend, it behoovescitizens interested in freedom toreflect seriously on an effectiveway - regardless of how long the,vay may be - as an alternativeto the illusory and futile shortcuts most of them have been at­tempting.

Let us concede that the Ameri­can people are sharply divided onthe question at issue. On the oneside are the millions who giveenthusiastic approval to govern­mental responsibility for security,welfare, and prosperity. On theother side are the very few whosee only ruin in the current drift,

1 For a further development of thifpoint, see "Freedom Follows the FreEMarket," by Dean Russell, The FreemanJanuary, 1963.

1965 LIGHT BRINGS FORTH THE EYE 35

who have a profound faith in freemarket processes and rely exclu­sively upon them for eeonomicprogress.

What's Wrong with Them,or with Ourselves?

Being one of the latter few,my purpose is to discover whythe millions do not understandwhat we understand, or what ailsus who would bring understand­ing. Are they not educable and, ifnot, why not? Is there somethingout of kilter with our educationalmethods and, if so, what is it?

What of these millions, the en­thusiasts for statism? Could itbe that they have really lost heartfor an economy richer in its ma­terial outpourings than any otherever known? Ortega suggestedthis possibility:

Weare now beginning to realizethat these centuries, so self-satisfie'd,so perfectly rounded-off, are deadwithin. Genuine vital integrity doesnot consist in satisfaction, in attain­ment, arrival. Cervantes said longsince: "The road is always betterthan the inn." When a period hassatisfied its desires, its ideal, thismeans that it desires nothing more;that the wells of desire have beendried up. This is to say, our famousplenitude is in reality coming to anend. There are centuries which die ofself-satisfaction through not know­ing how to renew their desires, just

as the happy drone dies after nuptialflight. 2

If Ortega was correct, then welive in a period which has satis­fied its most urgent "desires, itsideal." In order to weigh prop­erly the nature of this "ideal,"we need to contrast it with thegeneral poverty of less than 200years ago. According to AdamSmith, there were mothers whohad to bear 20 children to assuretwo reaching adulthood. Life ex­pectancy at birth was less than39 years, as against today's 70!

Then came the Industrial Revo­lution followed by the floweringof specialization and freedom intransactions: the free market econ­omy more fully realized than everbefore. Reckoned in terms of ev­olutionary time, we witness in onlya moment millions upon millionsof people rising from abject pov­erty to a state of unprecedentedaffluence - millionaires galore andan enormous upper middle classwith the power to acquire luxur­ies of every sort - our "famousplenitude." Indeed, so fantastical­ly has this approximation of thefree market performed that count­less people - with little abilityand little effort - have acquiredgreat wealth. Because of a free­dom they know nothing about,

2 From Revolt of the Masses by Ortegay Gasset (N. Y.: W. W. Norton & Co.,1932).

36 THE FREEMAN March

many have in real life approxi­mated the fantasy of somethingfor nothing.3

No Place to Go

This emerging from abject pov­erty to a state of great affluencehas been a fascinating experiencefor Western man; wealth becamehis desire, his ideal, his aim inlife. Millions fulfilled their desiresand the rest came to believe thatfulfillment was just around thecorner. Political opportunists withtheir something-for-nothingschemes assure them of this.

But reaching a goal dries upthe desire for it. The road is al­ways better than the inn. Ever somany of those with materialism astheir god are now at the inn.There is no more road for themno place to go - and no happines~at the inn! Millions of affluentAmericans are less satisfied thanRussian peasants still on the roadstruggling in vain for the sam~

3 The gaining of wealth without abilityor exertion must not, from the econo­mist's standpoint, be condemned. Thevalue of a good or service is not deter­mined by either ability or effort exertedbut, instead, by what others will givewillingly in exchange. The making of afunny face on TV may have more valuethan the labored efforts of a college pro­fessor. For a brief study of this all-im­portant subjective theory of value, seeValue and Price, by Eugen von Bohm­Bawerk, 160 pp. Obtainable from theFoundation for Economic EducationInc., Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y. Paper:$2.00.

false god but unaware of thehopelessness of their struggle. Inthis sense, "ignorance is bliss."

An ideal is the conception ofsomething in its perfect form and,thus, it is beyond the reach ofimperfect men. Anything that isattainable loses its ideal qualities.If becoming wealthy is held as anideal, what remains after wealth'sattainment? The ideal vanishesthe moment the inn is reached; thesituation is "rounded-off, deadwithin."

The reason for this catastropheappears simple enough: Westernman has confused means andends. There is a moral purposein a good economy. The aim isnot to finance luxury, opulence,retirement from the road, a fancysuite at the inn. Wealth used thusproves to be an empty end or ob­jective of earthly existence.Wealth, if its moral purpose isto be achieved, is but a means offreeing oneself from the enslave­ment which poverty imposes.Wealth consists of all the tools thatmake possible the refinement ofthose aptitudes and faculties forwhich each individual is best fit­ted; it permits everyone to freelyexchange the product of the re­sultant specialization. Wealth-theservices of many others in ex­change for one's own contribution- affords each man a better op­portunity for getting more ef-

1965 LIGHT BRINGS FORTH THE EYE 37

fectively into life. But wealth canbe quite as enslaving as povertyif used to escape from life, whichis the case when wealth is re­garded as an end in itself. Wealthshould not be considered an ulti­mate desire or ideal but, rather,a means for the more efficientpursuit of something that canqualify as the ideal.

Persons who desire wealth forwealth's sake, as their ultimatedesire, are in trouble if they at­tain their ideal. Ortega concludedthat they die of self-satisfactionthrough not knowing how to re­new their desires.

Assessing the Obstacles

Let us now consider the ob­stacles that confront the few whowould, if they could, halt the driftinto statism and turn toward thefree market economy and individ­ual liberty. It is a fatal error tounderassess the difficulty:• Wealth or materialism as an

ultimate desire has proved tobe a dead-end road, and themillions who have concentratedexclusively on it as an idealcannot, by themselves, find any­thing else for which to yearnand strive, anything that canqualify as an ideal. Personswho have been able to obtainso much for so little are in­clined to mistake their opulencefor a personal wisdom and,

thus, are not easily teachable.They lack an eye with whichto perceive the principles offreedom.

• The millions who haven't yetbecome affluent, the ones whoenvy the affluence they seeabout them, as well as the easewith which it came, and whocan be taken in by something­for-nothing schemes, are noteasily teachable. They also lackan eye.

• The millions with a hankeringfor power and who see appealsto mass gullibility as a meansto attain it - those folks whospecialize in contriving some­thing-for-nothing schemes­are far from teachable. Theyespecially lack an eye for thefree market philosophy.Even though the above refer­

ences encompass many millions ofpeople, they hardly "scratch thesurface." I am merely trying toestablish the point that we areconfronted with a blindness prob­lem; that is, there isn't much inthe way of an eye to pereeive thefree market and its miraculousworkings.

It is appropriate, however, thatwe first assess our own faults.Can it be that we, also, are afflict­ed with blindness? Unquestion­ably, yes, for many of us insist ontrying to take nonexistent shortcuts, and 'we learn nothing from

38 THE FREEMAN March

our experiences. In a word, manyof us refuse to concede that thelongest way round may be theshortest way home.

An abbreviated self-portrayal,a sort of montage of us few: Wehave no trouble at all in seeingthrough the sham of the attrac­tive nicknames and the loftilyworded preambles of political pow­er schemes. There is no distrac­tion to us by reason of thesewordy adornments. A very goodeye here! Nor are we blind as totheir essence. We clearly see thatall of them, without exception­TVA, Post Office, Farm AllotmentProgram, Urban Renewal, orwhatever - are no more thansomething-for-nothing concoc­tions.4 We see that these grandi­ose political plans are founded onsomething being given in retu rnfor nothing, and given by a gov­ernment which has nothing of itsown to give. An excellent eye upto this point!

But beyond this comes theblindness: Too many of us wishto correct the thinking of thesemillions who approve false meas-

4 Some of the millions will counterthat people pay for TVA power and light,for postal service, for money borrowedfrom government, and so on. They do, inpart. But the feature of these socializa­tions is below-cost and below-marketpricing. It is the uncollected part whichhas to be met by taxpayer subsidy thatis the something the "beneficiaries" willreceive in return for nothing.

ures by "telling 'em off"; tospread the true word by poundinginto their heads that there's nosuch thing as a free lunch, andthat these schemes are a fraudand delusion; to elect the "right"people to public office. And more:to give them economics in cap­sules; to put the gist of our wis­dom in parables; to get our mes­sage across to the masses; to con­vince the man in the street. Asthe sales manager puts it, "Getout there and sell! sell! sell!"

Education is a drawing forthprocess, induced by an attractionto light. These attempted shortcuts, on the other hand, are push­ing thrusts, and if they have anyeffect at all, it is to repel. Theydo not serve to educate. The re­cord is clear on this. Better noth­ing than these.

The Pursuit of Excellence

Not only is the longest wayround the shortest way home, itis the only way home! The form­ula, as old as thinking man, issimple in pronouncement but asrare and difficult of achievementas any of life's disciplines. It isthe road that has no earthly inn,the ideal unattainable, the renew­al of desires that knows no sa­tiety; it is, as Hanford Hendersonphrased it, "the passionate pur­suit of excellence in everything."This he termed "a religion."

1965 LIGHT BRINGS FORTH THE EYE 39

Relating this longest way roundto the problem at issue, it is plainthat millions of citizens, at leastin their present state, cannot per­ceive free market processes. Forthese they have no eye. Whatbrings forth the eye? Why thelight itself brings forth the eye!

We see that animal species com­mitted to the depths of the sea orto subterranean existence lose ornever develop sight, and from thisconclude that where there is nolight there is no eye for seeing.

Nor need we confine these ob­servations to the kind of lightthat can be precisely measured incandle power. The same principleis applicable to that inner light­enlightenment - which we knownot how to measure. In societieswhere there are no enlightenedindividuals we also note that thereis neither light nor eyes developedto perceive it.

Where the eye is blind or un­derdeveloped, disaster to a oncegreat economy cannot be avoided.Thus, any person concerned aboutthe environment in which it is hislot to live, is warranted - yes,selfishly justified - in doing whathe can to bring forth the eye. Butanalysis reveals that one's in­fluence in this respect is limitedto self-perfection, that is, to in­creasing one's own candle power;approximating, as nearly as pos­sible, one's creative potentialities;

acquiring the ability not merelyto perceive but to conceive ideas;in a word, it is the art of becom­ing human.5

I t is this long way round, thecontinual emphasis on personalemergence in consciousness andawareness, along with ever-im­proving expository qualities-self­generated enlightenment - thatshould be what we mean by in­dividualism.

It is, of course, as unindivid­ualistic as it is futile to urge thisform of individualism on anyone.Individualism, in this highestsense, is a product of the CreativeLight and of self-urging. But ofone thing I am certain: Regard­less of any pretensions to the con­trary, no one but an individualdedicated to and having successwith his own upgrading has anyinfluence whatsoever on better­ing the perception of others, onimproving society or the free mar­ket or whatever. Can one developlight enough to open eyes? That'sthe question. For light, and lightonly, brings forth the eye!

If this longest way round hasthe "fault" of being difficult, itat least has the virtue of beingrealistic - and possible - in my

opinion. +5 For a further exploration of this

idea, read Lecomte du Nouy's commen­taries on the evolution of man, especiallyChapter XI in his Human Destiny. Nowavailable in paperback. A Mentor Book.

6.An

AmericanDream

CLARENCE B. CARSON

No man any more has any care for the morrow, either for himself or hischildren, for the nation guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortablemaintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave.t

- EDWARD BELLAMY, 1888

THE ATTRACTION of ameliorativereform is· the promise of a betterworld in which to live. There maybe some exceptions to this rule,notably for those who find in re­formist activity the means of ex­ercising power over people. But forthe generality of people improve­ment, not power, has been the lure.They have been drawn into thelabyrinth of reform programs byvisions of what the world would belike when the reformers had insti­tuted their reforms. Utopian vi­sions have been the magnets pull­ing peoples into the orbits ofreformers.

Yet, so far as we know, mostpeople have rejected and do reject

Dr. Carson is Professor of American Historyat Grove City College, Pennsylvania. Amonghis earlier writings in THE FREEMAN were hisseries on The Fateful Turn and The AmericanTradition, both of which are now availableas books.

40

the possibility of utopia. "Uto­pian" is a term of derision fordescribing impractical dreamers.The more practical minded per­ceive the fallacies in the utopianblueprint. Those with keenerimaginations foresee the empti­ness of utopia, even if it werepossible. Man was meant to strive,some will say; contentment is forcows. Even so, it may be that theargument against utopia that hasthe broadest appeal is the mani­fest impossibility of achieving it.In short, man and the universe arenot so constructed as to makeutopia possible.

But the reformist bent hastriumphed in America, and inmany other places, in our day. And

1 Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward-2000-1887 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1888), p. 90.

1965 AN AMERICAN DREAM 41

ameliorative reform has as itsimplicit goal the. achievement ofutopia. How can this state ofaffairs have come about? How canmen have rejected utopia and em­braced reforms which have astheir end the achievement of uto­pia?

From Reality to Utopia

Two developments made such acontradiction appear not to be one.First, there was the cutting looseand flight from reality. This didnot make utopia appear possible tomost sane people, but it did helpto render programs and plansdrawn from utopian visions ap­parently feasible. Second, a par­ticularization of utopia took place,and social reformers advancedwhat appeared to be limited pro­grams which they hoped wouldmove them to their ultimate goal.At the same time, though; that themeans were particularized in spe­cific programs, the goal was gen­eralized into such hazy rhetoricalphrases as peace, prosperity, andprogress. Thus, a reversal of theutopian mode occurred as the at­tempts were made to actualizeutopia. In utopian literature, thegoal - the good society - is oftenpictured in luxuriant detail; whilethe means to the arrival at thisgoal are not usually specified. Notethat the utopian could thus avoidthe odium that would be associ-

ated with the coercion and revolu­tion by which his goal has to bepursued, and the reformer couldavoid the disrepute attached toutopianism.

It is hazardous, however, to fol­low a general analysis of thesedevelopments any further. Thesegeneralizations do not do full jus­tice to the complexity of the phe­nomena. Moreover, the above for­mulations may be interpreted asimplying that utopians and re­formers have intentionally playeddown or remained silent aboutcertain facets of their programs.This may not have been the case.On the contrary, utopians did notenvision the force and violencewhich would accompany efforts toarrive at their goals. By a similarmyopia, reformers need not knowthat they are utopians. It must bekept clear that intellectuals havenot only drawn others into an il­lusory mental realm; they arequite often victims of the samedelusions. This was made possibleby the flight from reality. But thepoint at hand is that the impetusto the flight from reality whichhas eventuated in the triumph ofmelioristic reform was providedby utopian visions, though thesehave long since receded beyond thehorizon from whence today theyemit the colors that are identifiedby believers as peace, prosperity,and progress.

42 THE FREEMAN March

The American IILagll

Those advancing the flight fromreality had great difficulty inlaunching America. The fact hasnot been sufficiently appreciated.When writers note that Americansdid not rush to adopt ameliorativereforms as avidly as Europeans,the matter is often treated as the"social lag" of Americans. Ameri­cans "lagged" more than fiftyyears behind Germans in provid­ing certain kinds of "insurance"programs for workers. Americans"lagged" many years behind Eng­land in providing old-age pensions,and some several years in empow­ering labor unions. Contrariwise,France is far ahead of the UnitedStates in rent controls (and inhousing shortages), and Englandis much further along the road tocompletely socialized medicine.

The matter can and should bedescribed in quite different terms.Americans held out against thelure of utopia, the promises of re­formers, the blandishments of rev­olutionaries much longer thanmany Europeans. Reform, when itcame to America,. was more mod­erate and mild than in most Euro­pean countries, and did not sodrastically alter the existing situa­tion. Still, it has come, and thegradualness of the movement hasobscured for many Americans theimport of it.

There were tremendous obsta-

cles to the triumph of reformismin America. The institutions, tra­ditions, habits, and beliefs ofAmericans ran counter to the out­look and practices associated withameliorative reform. But, the cas­ual observer might object, on thesegrounds reformism should havecome much more readily to Ameri­ca than to Europe. No country wasmore deeply locked in age-old waysthan Russia. The British traditionwas hoary with age before Amer­ica was an adolescent. Surely,America was more. flexible thanbureaucrat-ridden France, theAmerican more amenable to re­form than the Slavic peasant. Be­sides, the governments in Americawere generally more responsive tothe populace than in Europe.

The greatest weakness in theseobjections is a misunderstandingof how reformism has been ad­vanced, and by whom. If the "peo­ple" had originated and advancedameliorative reform, it shouldhave come very early to America.Traditions and customs in Amer­ica were not so firmly fixed as inmany countries. On the otherhand, popular government wasmuch better provided for in Amer­ica than in most countries. Toblame governmental interventionand security programs upon de­mocracy, however, is to confuseeffect with cause. Undoubtedly,there are now many people who

1965 AN AMERICAN DREAM 43

have vested interests in certaingovernmental programs, and thereare many others who have acceptedthe notion that their prosperity isdue to the efforts of politicians.But these are effects, not causes,though they do contribute to thecontinued feasibility of politiciansadvancing ameliorative reform.Reforms were and are advancedby intellectuals (and their satrapsamong the bureaucracy). In anycountry where there was a mod­erately enlightened electorate, ithas taken many years of vigorousactivity to get a majority for re­forms of any great dimensions.The experience of reformers inEngland and America should giveample evidence for this statement.2

Drastic social reforms were in­troduced most readily in Russia,Germany, and Italy. It was thework of intellectuals, or pseudo­intellectuals. These were countrieswithout a lengthy experience inpopular governments, but coun­tries within which tradition waRstrong. But the intellectuals were- as they have tended to be in­creasingly everywhere - disaffect-

2 There is, of course, a demonstrablecorollary between universal suffrage andthe triumph of reformism in many coun­tries. And reformers have been eagerproponents of universal suffrage. Thesignificance of this is not far to seek: theilliterate, unpropertied, and politicallyinexperienced succumb more readily thandoes a limited electorate to the promisesof reformers.

ed from the tradition. Not onlywas tradition without effectivespokesmen quite often, but alsothe populace was inexperienced indefending it.

Stabilizing Influences

In America, things were quitedifferent. The United States Con­stitution had been formed by theleading thinkers in America. Muchof the political tradition had takenshape in the historical memory ofmuch of the populace. The tradi­tions had been freely formed, forthe most part, and had the sup­port of intellectuals for most ofthe nineteenth century. Americansrevered their institutions, tookpride in them, were accustomed tothinking of them as the best inthe world.

Equally important as an obsta­cle to reform was the character ofAmerican institutions. The UnitedStates Constitution - and proba­bly most state constitutions - is aconservative document. That is,the government which it providesfor makes change difficult to ac­complish. Fora bill to become lawit must be passed by a majority ofthe House of Representatives, amajority of the Senate, and signedby the President. Even then, itmay be nullified by the courts asbeing unconstitutional. The Con­stitution can, of course, beamended, but amendments must

44 THE FREEMAN March

be approved by conventions orlegislatures in three-fourths ofthe states to become a part of theConstitution. Yet there can be nolegitimate occasion for violent rev­olution on majoritarian grounds,for the Constitution can and hasbeen amended, and laws can beand have been passed. (It shouldbe noted here that reformers havemanaged to advance their uncon­stitutional programs in the twen­tieth century without getting theConstitution amended. How theyhave done this will be taken uplater.)

The Constitution was the bed­rock of political reality to Ameri­cans for most of their history, too.There was good reason for this be­lief. It was written and approvedby men deeply immersed in his­torical experience and accustomedto attending to the enduring na­ture of things. It is often allegedthat the endurance of the Consti­tution can be ascribed to its elas­ticity. The fact that it has lastedso long might better be attributedto its foundation in enduring reali­ties, in realities about the natureand purpose of government, aboutthe nature of man, about the dan­gers of concentrated power, andabout the importance of limitedaction. The principles derivedfrom these realities were the basesof the checks and balances insti­tuted. These latter were mighty

buttresses to liberty just as theywere formidable obstacles to re­form.

A Multiplicity of Dreams

It was with some trepidationthat I decided to call this piece"An American Dream." It ismainly about a utopian vision, andutopia was not the Americandream. Indeed, there was no Amer­ican dream, and this becomes ap­parent when the situation isviewed historically. There weremany American dreams. From theearliest colonial days the diversityand multiplicity of Americandreams are obvious. The Puritanleaders in New England had onekind of vision, the settlers of Vir­ginia another. The society envi­sioned by Quakers in Pennsylvaniawas different from that of thosewho planted North Carolina. Thedream of Roger Williams in RhodeIsland differed dramatically fromthat of the L.ords Calvert forMaryland.

Nor when a united body hadbeen wrought out of these diverseelements did the multiplicity ofdreams disappear. The Americanagreement, as I have pointed outelsewhere, was an agreement todisagree. American unity was notfashioned by the crushing of di­versity but by providing a frame­work in which each man couldhave his own vision, dream his

1965 AN AMERICAN DREAM 45

own dream, make his own way. Ifa man had visions of utopia, andsome did, he was free to pursue italone or in the company of others,so long as the others joined himvoluntarily and could leave whenthey were ready. The Americanway was the voluntary way. Itwas, in essence, individualistic.

Religious and Political Liberty

Still, there were· dreams sharedby a sufficient number of Ameri­cans that they could be calledAmerican dreams. One of the ear­liest and deepest of these was thedesire of men to practice their re­ligious beliefs freely. For most,this was not yet a vision of reli­gious liberty when the earliest set­tlements in English America weremade. The Pilgrims only wanted aplace to practice their own versionof Christianity; so it was, too,with that larger group· of peopleknown as Puritans. They drove outdissenters from among them, pro­claiming that those who disagreedwith them were free - free to go!Even the enlarged view of reli­gious freedom in Maryland after1649 encompassed only those whoprescribed to certain tenets· of re­ligious orthodoxy. Some of theAnglican colonies - notably Vir­ginia - permitted no other reli­gious practices. But by the time ofthe American revolt from Englandmany· Americans had come to ac-

cept a new vision, a VISIon of aland in which each man mightfreely choose and practice his reli­gion without let or hindrance.Within a few decades, this had be­come the established practicethroughout America.

There was another shareddream, too. It is aptly described ina phrase used by Dumas Maloneand Basil Rauch as the title of atextbook for American history.Americans hoped to create an Em­pire for Liberty.3 The word "em­pire" had not been loaded withpejorative connotations at the timeof the founding of the Republic.It was still a descriptive word. Itmeant the presence of diverse peo­ples - diverse in origin, in reli­gion, in language, and so on - un­der one system of government andone flag. The dream of an empirefor liberty in America, then, wasthe dream of many peoples unitedby a single constitution, one whichprotected them in their diversityand provided for individual lib­erty. This was the American po­Iitical dream, and it came veryclose to realization in the courseof the nineteenth century.

Many individuals shared adream, too, each for himself. Theessence of the vision is capturedin the phrase, personal inde­pendence. Americans used more

3 (New York: Appleton-Century­Crofts, 1960,2 volumes).

46 THE FREEMAN March

earthy phrases to describe the vi­sion: "to be one's own man," "tobe beholden to no man," "to befree, white, and twenty-one." Thearticulation of this vision rangedfrom Thomas Jefferson's prizedyeoman farmer to Horatio Alger'syouth who made good in the bigcity. The dream was realized (andstill is) by many Americans,though not all went from bobbinboy to industrial magnate as didAndrew Carnegie or from obscu­rity to great influence as didDwight L. Moody. But affluenceand influence were the furtherreaches of the dream, for it couldbe both modestly envisioned andfulfilled. For most, it involved suchthings as a home of one's own, ashop or store with a dependableclientele, a farm free of debt, andso on through the variation ofgoals which free men· may set forthemselves.

These were not visions of uto­pia, nor of euphoria. They in­volved hard work, careful husban­dry, continued striving, and per­chance the faith that if one hadshown himself a worthy stewardof his possessions, there wouldawait him at the end of life theinimitable praise, "Well done ... ,"promised in religious teachings.The utopian dream is the oppositeof the American dreams. It is avision of earthly bliss, not ofstruggle and accomplishment. It is

a collective vision, not an individ­ualistic one. The vision is one forsociety, and everyone in societymust be drawn into it, whether hewill or no. It is monolithic; diver­sity must yield to uniformity andconformity for it to be realized (ifit could be). Utopians have, ofcourse, pictured release and "free­dom" for individuals in their uto­pias, but such evidence as we havefrom attempts to create utopiasindicates that no importance needbe attached to these claims.

liThe Dream" Emerges

In the course of time, though,American dreams have begun tobe subsumed into An AmericanDream. Even in our day, individ­uals still dream and work for thefulfillment of their dreams - withconsiderable success as measuredby the homes, farms, vacation cot­tages, and businesses that theyown. But the Dream is swallowingup the dreams, as property is cir­cumscribed by restrictions, astaxes increase at all levels, as gov­ernment guarantees of securityreplace individual provisions forsecurity, as inflation destroys theutility of money as a means ofsaving, and as people are bom­barded on every hand by productsof thought carried on at the levelof social units rather than individ­uals. In short, a transformationhas taken place in the type of

1965 AN AMERICAN DREAM 47

dreams that are approved by so­ciety, and a long term effort hasgone on to draw men into the men­tal context of a single dream orvision.

In political terms, the Dreamhas had a variety of names: theSquare Deal, the New Freedom,the New Deal, the Fair Deal, theNew Frontier, and, most recently,the Great Society. In the lattertwo phrases the character of theDream is made manifest withgreater clarity: it is a collectivevision to be arrived at collectivelyby the use of government to recon­struct men and society.

The terms may be new, but theDream is an old one. It is a uto­pian vision for America. Thestruggle to implant the vision inthe minds of Americans has beena long one (and will require con­siderable verbiage in the telling ofit), for the vision was set forth ina manner that began to appeal tosome Americans in the last yearsof the nineteenth century. Uto­pian novels poured forth in greatnumber- and variety from about1885 to 1911. As one book pointsout, "the 1890's. in the UnitedStates [wJas the most productivesingle period in the history ofutopian thought."4 Some of themore important utopias, mainly by

4 .Glenn Negley and J. Max Patrick,The Quest for Utopia (New York: HenrySchuman, 1952), p. 138.

American writers, were: IgnatiusDonnelly, Caesar's Column (1890) ;William Morris, News from N 0­

where (1890) ; Thomas Chauncey,The Crystal Button (1891) ; Igna­tius Donnelly, The Golden Bottle(1892); William D. Howells, ATraveler from Altruria (1894);H. G. Wells, The Time Machine(1895); and Edward Bellamy,Equality (1897).;'

"Loo1<ing Back.ward"

One book, however, may havebeen more important than all theothers combined in awakening thevision in America. It certainlygave great impetus to the produc­tion of utopias by its success. Thiswas Edward Bellamy's LookingBackward, published in 1888. By1890 the book had sold 200,000copies, and was in that year sell­ing at the rate of 10,000 everyweek.6 It is, even today, availablein an inexpensive paperback edi­tion. Within two years after thepublication of the book, 162 clubslocated in 27 states were holdingmeetings. They were called Na­tionalist clubs. Bellamy .did notuse the word socialist to describehis obviously socialist system, andhis early followers took a moreneutral word also. A magazine,

5 See ibid., pp. 19-20.

6 Daniel Aaron, Men of Good Hope(New York: Oxford University Press,1951), p. 104.

48 THE FREEMAN March

called The Nationalist, was found­ed by friends of Bellamy to spreadthe ideas. The book had an impactupon such well-known figures asWilliam Dean Howells, MarkTwain, and Thorstein Veblen. ThePopulist Party was influenced byBellamy, for an observer at theConvention in 1892 declared thatBellamy's readers "were the brainsof the convention. They were col­lege professors, editors, artists,and authors. . . ."7 Bellamy wasfriendly with all sorts of reform­ers and intimate with some of theprofessed socialists. Henry Dema­rest Lloyd wrote him in 1896, "Themovement we are in is Interna­tional Socialism.... Why not rec­ognize it and say so !"8 Bellamy,however, made socialism palatableas a dream to many people withoutcalling it by that name.

What was there about this bookthat occasioned its great impact?An examination of Looking Back­ward is in order. It is a novel, aromance, a fantasy. It is set in thecity of Boston in the year 2000. Ithas its hero (Julian West) and itsheroine (Edith Leete) who givethe story its "love" interest. Thevery clever device for unfoldingthe story is that the hero was mes­merized in 1887 and slept unbe­knownst to anyone until 2000.This device allows the reader to

7 Quoted in ibid., p. 130.8 Quoted in ibid., p. 132.

identify with West as he encount­ers the surprising changes thathave occurred during his longsleep. Boston has been trans­formed. His first view of the cityconvinces him of this:

At my feet lay a great city. Milesof broad streets, shaded by trees andlined with fine buildings, for the mostpart not in continuous blocks but setin larger or smaller inclosures,stretched in every direction. Everyquarter contained large open squaresfilled with trees, among which statuesglistened and fountains flashed in thelate afternoon sun. Public buildingsof a colossal size and an architecturalgrandeur unparalleled in my dayraised their stately piles on everyside. Surely I had never seen this citynor one comparable to it before.9

It was Boston all right; the fa­miliar pattern of the CharlesRiver assured him of that. But itwas a New City he beheld, locatedon aNew Earth. In short order hewas to learn that not only had thechange occurred in Boston but alsothroughout the United States. Be­yond that, Europe had been trans­formed as well, and the· rest ofthe world was in the process of asimilar change. Utopia had beenachieved.

In this New Age, war has beenbanished from the face of theearth; universal peace reigns su­preme. There is no longer any

9 Bellamy, Ope cit., p. 38.

1965 AN AMERICAN DREAM 49

crime to speak of, only somethingcalled atavism - vestigial remainsof the criminal mind from anotherera - which produces occasionalantisocial acts. There is no longerany corruption or demagoguery inpolitics - in fact, there is very lit­tle politics. There are no laborproblems, nor any other class orgroup problems. All destructiveactivities have been banished, anda vast surge of constructivenessand creativeness has emerged. AsDr. Leete, the interlocutor of thestory, describes the situation:

"It has been an era of unexampledintellectual splendor. Probably hu­manity never before passed througha moral and material evolution, atonce so vast in its scope and brief inits time of accomplishment, as thatfrom the old order to the new in theearly part of this century. When mencame to realize the greatness of thefelicity which had befallen them, andthat the change through which theyhad passed was not merely an im­provement in details of their condi­tion, but the rise of the race to a newplane of existence with an illimitablevista of progress, their minds wereaffected in all their faculties with astimulus, of which the outburst of themediaeval renaissance offers a sug­gestion but faint indeed. There en­sued an era of mechanical invention,scientific discovery, art, musical andliterary productiveness to which noprevious age of the world offers any­thing comparable."10

10 Ibid., p. 161.

The Planned Economy

What had wrought all thesemarvelous changes? It all cameabout very simply, or so Bellamywould have us believe. All privateproduction of ·goods and provisionof services was taken over by thegovernment. The economy was ra­tionally organized - i. e., planned,money abolished, income equalized,production scientifically planned,competition eliminated, and menbountifully supplied with goodsand services. Labor was providedby an industrial army, to whichevery male was subject from 21to 45. The industrial forces wereorganized in great guilds, and thePresident of the country chosenfrom these. Professionals hadtheir own organizations.

One might suppose that thisdrastic alteration in ways of doingthings had been accomplished byrevolution. Not at all; instead, itcame about by peaceful evolution.Let Dr. Leete describe the processonce more:

"Early in the last century the evo­lution was completed by the final con­solidation of the entire capital of thenation. The industry and commerceof the country, ceasing to be con­ducted by a set of irresponsible corpo­rations and syndicates of private per­sons at their caprice and for theirprofit, were intrusted to a single syn­dicate representing the people, to beconducted in the common interest for

50 THE FREEMAN March

the common profit. The nation, that isto say, organized as the one greatbusiness corporation in which allother corporations were absorbed; itbecame the one capitalist in place ofall other capitalists, the sole employ­er, the final monopoly in which allprevious and lesser monopolies wereswallowed up, a monopoly in the prof­its and economies of which all citizensshared. The epoch of trusts had endedin The Great Trust. In a word, thepeople of the United States concludedto assume the conduct of their ownbusiness, just as one hundred oddyears before they had assumed theconduct of their own government,organizing now for industrial pur­poses on precisely the same groundsthat they had then organized for po­litical purposes."ll

In the accomplishment of this," 'there was absolutely no violence.The change had been long fore­seen. Public opinion had becomefully ripe for it, and the wholemass of the people was behindit.' "12 Neither violence, discord,nor compulsion ushered in the newage, nor characterized relation­ships within it. Instead, as Dr.Leete explains to Julian West,"'If I were to give you in onesentence, a key to what may seemthe mysteries of our civilization ...,I should say that it is the factthat the solidarity of the race andthe brotherhood of man . . . are

11 Ibid., p. 56.12 Ibid., p. 67

... ties as real and vital as phys­ical fraternity.' "13

J ulian West poses the obviousquestion at an earlier point in thebook:

"Human nature itself must havechanged very much," I said.

"Not at all," was Dr. Leete's reply,"but the conditions of human lifehave changed, and with them the mo­tives of human action."14

A minister takes up the explana­tion:

" ... Soon was fully revealed, whatthe divines and philosophers of theold world never would have believed,that human nature in its essentialqualities is good, not bad, that men bytheir natural intention and structureare generous, not selfish, pitiful [fullof pity], not cruel, sympathetic, notarrogant, godlike in aspirations, in­stinct with divinest impulses and self­sacrifice, images of God indeed, notthe travesties upon Him they hadseemed. The constant pressure,through numberless generations, ofconditions of life which might haveperverted angels, had not been ableto essentially alter the natural nobil­ity of the stock, and these conditionsonce removed, like a bent tree, it hadsprung back to its normal upright­ness."15

The mode of the transition fromthe old to the new society is vague

13 Ibid., p. 137

14 Ibid., pp. 60-6115 Ibid., pp. 287-88.

1965 AN AMERICAN DREAM 51

and inexplicit. Unlike Khrushchev- and Marx before him - Bellamybelieved that it was possible tomake omelets without breakingeggs. But no such vagueness at­tends the descriptions of the goodsociety which has emerged in2000 A. D. It is described in lov­ing detail. Julian West visits thedepartment stores from whichgoods are obtained, and the dis­tribution system from centralwarehouses is amply described.The system of state issued creditwhich replaces money is picturedminutely. How men are got toperform the various services forsociety are spelled out in intricatedetail.

Blueprint for Tomorrow

It does not require a great dealof imagination, either, to see thatmany things which Bellamy en­visioned have begun to emerge inmany tendencies of our day - ifone ignores the compulsion, thethrust to power of politicians, theunpleasantness, and the drearyuniformity of state producedthings, that is, if one removes theutopian elements. Bellamy madeit clear, in a letter appended toLooking Backward, that he intend­ed the book as predicting thingsto come:

Looking Backwa'rd, although inform a fanciful romance, is intended,in all seriousness, as a forecast, in ac-

cordance with the principles of evo­lution, of the next stage in the indus­trial and social development of hu­manity, especially in this country....16

A few examples of some "fore­casts" will reveal Bellamy's pre­science. Saving is no longer avirtue in this socialist heaven. Dr.Leete explains why this is so:

"The nation is rich, and does notwish the people to deprive themselvesof any good thing. In your day, menwere bound to lay up goods andmoney against coming failure of sup­port and for their children. This ne­cessity made parsimony a virtue. Butnow it would have no such laudableobject, and having lost its utility, ithas ceased to be regarded as a vir­tue."17

The explanations that are cur­rently offered for the phenomenondiffer somewhat from this, butsaving is no longer generally rec­ognized as a virtue among us. Norin the good society pictured forus is there any longer any con­nection between amount of workand rewards for it. Dr. Leete isagain the narrator:

"Desert is a moral question, andthe amount of the product a materialquantity. It would be an extraordi­nary sort of logic which should try todetermine a moral question by a ma­terial standard.... All men who dotheir best, do the same. A man's en-

16 Ibid., p. 334.17 Ibid., pp. 89-90.

52 THE FREEMAN March

dowments, however godlike, merelyfix the measure of his duty."18

In short, each person receives thesame income, regardless of hiscontribution. Greater ability onlydenotes greater responsibility tocontribute to the general well-be­ing. We have developed a varietyof devices, notably the progres­sive income tax, for achieving thisideal.

Many other similar examplesare given. There is no longer any­thing which could be called char­ity. Each person receives an in­come by virtue of his being aperson, and this income is con­ceived of as his by right. Theyspend their surplus on publicworks, "'pleasures in which allshare, upon public halls and build­ings, art galleries, bridges, statu­ary, means of transit, and theconveniences of our cities, greatmusical and theatrical exhibi­tions, and in providing on a vastscale for the recreations of thepeople.' "19 (It could be that JohnKenneth Galbraith's recommenda­tions for spending on the "publicsector" were not as original ashas been supposed.) Children areno longer dependent upon parentsfor their livelihood, and the onlyfamily bonds are affectional. Stategovernments have disappeared,

18 Ibid., p. 94.

19 Ibid., p. 243.

and such power as remains hasbeen centralized in Washington.World peace is maintained by " 'aloose form of federal union ofworld-wide extent. An interna­tional council regulates the mu­tual intercourse and commerce ofthe members of the union, andtheir joint policy toward the morebackward races, which are grad­ually being educated up to civil­ized institutions.' "20

Of course, Bellamy was notforecasting; he was dreaming. Hewas dreaming a dream whichevoked or reinforced a VISIonwhich had already begun to takeshape in the minds of many re­formist intellectuals. He made so­cialism so vague as to how it wasto be achieved and so bright as tothe future it would bring thatmany began to lose their misgiv-

20 Ibid., p. 140. Bellamy provided some­thing else, too, a distorted version of his­tory in the latter part of the nineteenthcentury, which many a history textbookstill carries. Note this description of com­petition. " 'The next of the great wasteswas that from competition. The field ofindustry was a battlefield as wide as theworld, in which the workers wasted inassailing one another, energies which, ifexpended in concerted effort .•• wouldhave enriched all. As for mercy or quar­ter in this warfare, there was absolutelyno suggestion of it. To deliberately entera field of business and destroy the enter­prises of those who had occupied it previ­ously ... was an achievemEmt which neverfailed to command popular admiration.Nor is there any stretch of fancy in com­paring this •.. with actual warfare.'"Ibid., pp. 230-31.

1965 AN· AMERICAN DREAM 53

ings about it. Above all, he do­mesticated and "Americanized"socialism and contributed greatlyto sowing the seeds which haveproduced a plant that comes nearerand nearer to being An AmericanDream. By 1964, Democrats inconvention could evoke many ofthe attributes of Bellamy's utopiaas recent accomplishments orthings ·to come in the future un­abashedly. They could do this,just as Bellamy could, withoutreference to the compulsion, inter­vention, loss of vitality in humanrelations, power in the hands ofpoliticians, spreading deliquency,international disorder, and terrorand violence let loose in the world.In short, many people have nowflown far enough from reality thatthey no longer distinguish. be..tween utopian fancies and therealities of the world in whichthey live.

This did not come about over­night, however. Some intellectuals,artists, politicians, and unwaryreaders may have taken up Bel­lamy's dream as their own in the1890's, but most Americans didnot. The indications are that agreat preponderance of Ameri­cans who thought about it inthose years would have agreedwith Andrew Carnegie, who wrotein 1889:

... To those who propose to substi­tute Communism for ... Individual­ism the answer, therefore, is: Therace has tried that. All progress fromthat barbarous day to the presenttime has resulted from its displace­ment.... It necessitates the changingof human nature itself.... We mightas well urge the destruction of thehighest existing type of man becausehe failed to reach our ideal as to favorthe destruction of Individualism, Pri­vate Property, the Law of Accumula­tion of Wealth, and the Law of Com­petition; for these are the highestresults of human experience....21

At any rate, American votersturned back populism at the polls,rejected Bryan and his more mod­erate reformism, turned down theSocialist Party in election afterelection, and would accept onlybits and pieces of reformism formany years.

Before Americans would bedrawn into the orbit of the vision,their eyes had to be drawn awayfrom viewing human nature, lawsin the universe, absolutes andprinciples, and the record of his­tory. A new outlook had to pre­cede the general acceptance of thedream. The flight from realityhad to be extended. ~

21 Andrew Carnegie, "Wealth," Democ­racy and the Gospel of Wealth, Gail Ken­nedy, ed. (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1949),p.S.

The ne~t article in this series will concern "The Pragmatic Sanction of Flux."

The Frontier Is FaBBDDM

EnwARD P. COLESON

IN the report of the Superintend­ent of the Census for 1890appeared the remark that at longlast the frontier was gone, thatwhile there were still pockets ofunsettled territory, there couldhardly be said to be a frontierline anymore. Thus closed an epochin American history, an heroicand often tragic story of the win­ning of a continent.

But the passing of the actualfrontier was not the end of thestory, just the beginning: appar­ently the energies once expendedon the Oregon Trail or clearing aplot of land about the cabin doorwere now to be released on a newfictional frontier where countlessmillions of cowboys and Indianswould perish on movie and TV

Dr. Coleson is Professor of Economics atSpring Arbor College in Michigan.

54

screens. The battle for the Westhad just begun.

Furthermore, the preoccupationwith the American frontier ismore than an obsession of "pulp"magazine writers and their fans.Serious scholars have attributedall sorts of virtues to the Ameri­can people, clearly the consequenceof the pioneer experience, or sothey think. Others were sure thatsuch calamities as the Great De­pression were in fact the con­sequences of the passing of thefrontier: we just couldn't livewithout one! And, finally, whenpoliticians run out of slogans­New Deals, Fair Deals, and thelike - there is always the NewFrontier to catch votes.

Just what was this "frontiereffect," which has such a hold onthe American imagination, and

1965 THE FRONTIER IS FREEDOM 55

how has it shaped our country forgood or ill?

What the frontier Didn't Do

The opening up of the NewWorld by Columbus, Cabot, Drake,and a host of others was a tre­mendous event to a Europe whichhad been stewing in its own juicefor centuries. Here were boundlesshorizons and new frontiers with­out limit. Surely, our contempor­aries reason, liberty was the nat­ural outgrowth of such an expan­sive situation in a world of un­spoiled abundance. It is inevitablealso, according to the same logic,for us to find ourselves in quitea different situation today withour empty lands long since filledand our resource base alreadyseriously depleted. The freedomof the frontier is no longer pos­sible; and anyone who insists wecould and should operate our econ­omies and governments accordingto the principles of the "GayNineties" is completely out ofcontact with reality, or so we aretold.

Now, as a matter of fact, thelatter part of the nineteenth cen­tury and the early years of thetwentieth, up until about WorldWar I, was one of the outstandingeras of human liberty in worldhistory. John Maynard Keynesextols this period in the mostcomplimentary terms. But we must

not assume, as people tend to do,that if life in the 1890's was rel­atively simple and unfettered thatthe 1790's must have been freerand the 1690's still more so. Thisjust isn't the truth. The world ofthree or four centuries ago, withthe machine age still well in thefuture and vast areas yet unex­plored, was as complicated andrepressive in its way as our own ­and for the same reason. Freedomis the consequence of a philosophyof life, a Weltanschauung or"world view" as the Germanswould say, a modus operandi, theoutworking of a deliberate choice,and not the spontaneous resultof Iiving at a special time in his­tory or in some favored naturalenvironment.

The notion that freedom is asnatural as breathing for thosehardy souls who dwell on thepioneer fringe is not supported bythe facts. If the English settlersin America absorbed the love offreedom by osmosis from the airor water of the New World, thenwhy didn't the French and Span­ish catch it, too? New Francewas born in chains and neverprospered; that is one of the rea­sons why the English finally wonout.

Spain's regulations of her Amer­ican colonies were, if anything,even more stupidly repressive. Infact the only legal outlet for an

56 THE FREEMAN March

Argentine cow, about the onlylikely export of the fertile pampasback then, was westward acrossthe continent, up over the Andes(the second highest range in theworld), by ship from Peru toPanama, then across the fever-in­fested Isthmus, and finally once ayear to Spain, when the royalconvoy sailed. All of this man­made complexity and confusion,when a child could see that theobvious and practical route wasout the front door through BuenosAires by direct sea route to Eu­rope!

The colony would have lan­guished utterly but for an activesmuggling trade carried on inspite of terrible penalties. Hadone remonstrated with the royalbureaucracy about this or a multi­tude of other equally inane pro­hibitions, he would have been toldthat there was already a "surplus"and, but for these benign restric­tions which like a dam held backthis ruinous wave of potentialabundance, the markets of theworld would be inundated withsuch a glut that every tradesman,merchant, and farmer would bebankrupt.

This pleniphobia, or fear ofabundance, was as much of anobsession to the seventeenth cen­tury mercantilists as it is to ourcontemporaries who are sure auto­mation will be our ruin. It is hard

for us to see how they ever gotthe notion that their meager littlewas too much; yet, so many fail tosee that there are still vast unmetneeds even today.

Frontier Abundance and Reality

Not only is freedom far froma spontaneous development on thefrontiers of the world, but thefamiliar notion of the fabulouswealth of a bounteous natureneeds some qualification. Many a"modern" who prates endlesslyabout the departed glories of ear­lier days would return by jetplane, the next flight, should any­one exile him to some pioneersettlement of today. Trees on thestump and ore in the ground areindeed assets, but they take somefixing before they are very useful.One might starve or perish fromexposure in the midst of such nat­ural abundance, as indeed manyhave, simply because most of na­ture's gifts must be processed tobe of any use to mankind.

Of the many broad and richfrontiers of George Washington'sday - and the world was mostly"new frontier" from pole to poleback then - only a few conspicu­ous areas have developed phenom­enally. The rest are still back­ward, probably now the benefi­ciaries of some development pro­gram. They haven't advanced andwon't, not because resources are

1965 THE FRONTIER IS FREEDOM 57

lacking but because the conditionsnecessary for progress are lacking.While such people need modernmachinery, education, sanitation,and about everything else imagin­able, these tools and techniquesstill won't get them started downthe road of progress in any per­manent way unless they changetheir minds fundamentally. Thephilosophy of freedom, libertyunder law, could accomplish forthem what multiplied billions inforeign aid has not done and can­not do.

When the Industrial Age startedsomewhat more than two hundredyears ago, the Western worldsuffered from the same health andnutritional problems that plaguethe backward areas even today.There was the same desperateproblem of poverty and want thatcasts its shadow over many a landtoday. In England two centuriesago, a bushel of wheat cost nearlya full week's wages for a commonlaborer. The diet was meager andmonotonous, and famine stalkedthe land when the scanty cropsfailed due to natural calamities.Epidemics swept away large frac­tions of the population on occa­sion. Infant and childhood mortal­ity was appallingly high: AdamSmith remarked that it was not un­common to find a peasant motherin the Highlands of Scotland whohad borne twenty children but had

not even two yet survIvIng. Inshort, we find the same heart­rending conditions that can befound· in the backward areas ofthe world even today. What hap­pened to change all this for afew favored people like you andme in the midst of a world ofignorance and want, where thetypical individual goes to bed hun­gry every night?

Frontiers or Freedom?

While some were seeking NewFrontiers, other Englishmen be­gan to tinker with textile machin­ery in the early years of theeighteenth century. Somewhatlater Watt produced a practicalsteam engine that got industrialproduction off to a vigorous start.While it is never possible to knowall the conditions which went intomaking a given situation developas it did, one thing is certain.This movement for the· bettermentof mankind came close to dyingin its infancy. Watt was not per­mitted to set up a shop in Glas­gow, and might never have gottenhis chance at aIIif the Universityhad not taken him in as the offi­cial instrument maker. Savagemobs attacked the new textilemills and destroyed them. Thesewing machine was invented inFrance before it was known inAmerica, but was destroyed byFrench tailors who feared auto-

58 THE FREEMAN March

mation. A mowing machine wasdevised in England before Mc­Cormick invented the reaper, butagain it was throttled in its in­fancy. Ingenious people no doubtinvented many a contrivance againand again across the ages, onlyto have them stillborn becauseof the difficulties of machiningwithout the lathes and other ma­chine tools we take for grantedand more particularly because theneighbors simply would not allowthe new labor-saving device tocome into being.

There is little reason to believethat the frontier held the magicthat a lot of people ascribe to it.Astounding progress has explodedin old settled lands such as theEngland of George III or WestGermany after World War II.Frontier lands have remainedprimitive for generations. Nationswith great natural resources havestagnated while tiny countries likeSwitzerland have forged aheadwithout much of anything to goon. The mysterious ingredient ofindustrial progress is simply thefreedom to try and the assurancethat creative effort will be re­warded. The stagnation of theGreat Depression was the con­sequence of massive governmentalinterventions in the economic proc-

ess, not the passing of the frontier.Certainly, the backwardness of

many an underdeveloped nationtoday is related to the fact thatthe enterprising individual is stig­matized and ruined by his neigh­bors and the local officials. To havelived in some remote "native" vil­lage long enough to know howtheir social curbs on progress oper­ate is to understand why the bestlaid plans of economic develop­ment schemes have a way of failingutterly.Without freedom to achieveand without a measure of securityfor life and property, aid is use­less; and with freedom, it is un­necessary. Any enterprising in­vestor is happy to put his moneyinto a going concern and nothingsucceeds like success. But therigidities of a managed economystifle initiative and scare off ven­ture capital, keeping the depressedarea stagnant and backward. Onlya rich country can afford the eco­nomic interventions of socialism- and they can't afford it for long.

Freedom is not a luxury for afew wealthy nations, as many ofour liberal pundits try to tell us,but a necessity for the poor andhungry as Erhard's Germany soeloquently demonstrated after hercrushing defeat in World War II.

~

A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

"The Great Society"NOT so LONG AGO one would havesworn that collectivist and inter­ventionist thinking was losing itsappeal. The economists were re­volting against Lord Keynes, atleast to the extent of becoming"neo-Keynesians" or "post-Keynes­ians." Students were becomingYoung Americans for Freedom, orjoining the Intercollegiate Societyof Individualists. The conservativemovement was gaining many newadherents.

Now, suddenly, everything seemsto be reversed. The Left has comeback with a rush. A socialist book,The Other America - Poverty inthe United States, by MichaelHarrington, becomes the Bible ofthose who are pushing an anti­poverty campaign that dependson self-defeating state action. Theancient League for IndustrialDemocracy, an outgrowth of theIntercollegiate Socialist Society,does not seem to be stirring, butthe W.E.B. DuBois Clubs, whichproclaim an unaffiliated Marxism,have started to snowball, particu­larly on the West Coast. The youngwho were looking to a revival of

conservatism yesterday have beenfollowed by an even younger setwho are going in for "personalist"commitment to nonlibertariancauses.

In the middle of it all PresidentL.yndon B. Johnson has become en­amoured of a phrase, "the GreatSociety." Whether he plucked thephrase out of his own memory,or whether it was fed to him byone of the task force papers whichProfessor Eric Goldman of Prince­ton has been in the course of as­sembling, is immaterial. The pointis that the phrase comes fromthe title page of a pre-World WarI book, The Great Society, by aFabian socialist Englishmannamed Graham WaHas. Thus themovement started by BernardShaw, H. G. Wells, Mr. and Mrs.Sidney Webb, and the other mem­bers of the English Fabian So­ciety in the eighties and ninetiesof the last century is still bearingfruit.

Since I have long been inter­ested in the relations betweenideologues and politicians, I tookGraham Wallas's book off the

59

60 THE FREEMAN March

dusty shelves the other day andstarted reading it for the firsttime in some forty years. AsWallas used the phrase, "the GreatSociety" was merely descriptiveof the increasing urbanized con­dition of life imposed on theWestern world by the spread ofthe Industrial Revolution. Wallasspoke of the steam engine andthe rise of the Manchester cottonmills as imposing an "extensionof the social scale" upon the hu­man species. The argument is nowso familiar as to be platitudinous:the villager in northern Michiganor the Orkney Islands cannot es­cape the implications of the in­ternational division of labor andthe coming of the population ex­plosion.

Wallas was not advocating any­thing tendentious by his use ofthe term "the Great Society" asa description of an historicaltrend. But when he came to pro­posing means of adaptation tothis society,he could think ofnothing better than Fabian pene­tration of the economic systemby collectivist bureaucrats andcollectivist methods. He wanted aMixed Economy, even though thatterm had not yet come into generalusage in 1914.

Modern Variations

Lyndon Johnson's use of Gra­ham Wallas's book title twists

things around a bit. To LBJ'sway of thinking, we have not yetarrived at "the Great Society."What the President has in mindwhen he uses the phrase is not"the extension of social scale"imposed by jet aircraft, or com­puters, or automated .factories.The Great Society of LyndonJohnson's dreams won't be hereuntil we have used modern scien­tific developments to eradicatepoverty, to give every child a goodeducation, and to make all ourcommunities healthy, happy, andbeautiful.

Nobody, of course, can make abrief for poverty, ignorance, andugliness. But the disturbing thingabout the current belated romancewith Graham Wallas's Fabiantract of 1914 (which, incidentally,was dedicated to Walter Lipp­mann) is that the 1965 programfor reaching "the Great Society"has a distinctly Fabian flavor ofits own. Those now in the politicaldriver's seat want their own grad­ualist approach to federally-sup­ported medicine and to Washing­ton-directed programs for wipingout pockets of poverty in the Ap­palachians and bringing school­books and remedial reading teach­ers to Harlem and back-of-the­yards Chicago.

Back in the early nineteen twen­ties, when I first read GrahamWallas, I could have been for the

1965 "THE GREAT SOCIETY" 61

current program. But since thenthe Britain which Wallas hopedto reform by a Fabian "organiza­tion of happiness" has given arather thorough trial to theschemes now being proposed. Theresult has not been the attain­ment of the sort of "Great Society"which our officeholders want. Onthe contrary, Britain in 1965 isfloundering in a 'most unhappyway.

Socialized Medicine

Britain has its compulsory med­ical insurance program. But ithas not been building new hospi..tals, and doctor friends of minewho are by no means "reactionary"insist that medicine in the Britainof today is in a period of decline.The British have had to recruitnurses from overseas. Young doc­tors have been emigrating to Can­ada and Australia. "It's poor med­icine for everybody today in Brit­ain, and good medicine only forthe rich who can pay for privateservice," says a New Haven, Con­necticut, gynecologist, Dr. Vir­ginia Stuermer.

Using Fabian techniques, Brit­ain has been trying to modernizeits industry to the point of wipingout poverty. But its steel millowners frightened by the prob­ability of a final nationalizationof basic steel-making facilities,have had no incentive to make

their plants as efficient as somein the German Ruhr or in Gary,Indiana. The British pound is to­day in trouble because Fabian"planning" has kept the Britishindustrial machine from makingitself competitive with continentalEurope, the United States, andJapan in world markets. Wagesin Britain have outpaced pro­ductivity increases. Prices are stillrising. And the response of theHarold Wilson government to thisstate of affairs. has been to tryto insulate the British economyfrom that of the outer world byputting a 15 per cent tax on im­ports.

The Fabian way is to imposecontrols from the top in order to"socialize" individual income. The1965 approach is admittedly a bitdifferent: subsidizing new schemesof production in the mountainbackwaters of Kentucky and pay­ing for schoolbooks in Manhattanis not all-out socialist "centralplanning." But the impact on thebudget can hurt the currency inwhich the entire nation does itsbusiness. The adoption of theFabian "inevitability of gradual­ism" to the solution of our prob­lems necessarily aggrandizes thepower of the central state.

The Voluntary Way

The shame of it is that thepresent program for attaining the

62 THE FREEMAN March

"Great Society" will be imposedfrom Washington on a nation thathas given every indication of solv­ing its problems by a combinationof voluntary individual action andlocal, state, and municipal meas­ures. I think of Richard Cor­nuelle's success in establishing aprivate reinsurance program forbanks which have been lendingmoney to deserving college stu­dents. I think of the Western Stu­dent Movement, which has beenrecruiting high-stand universityundergraduates to help cut downon school drop-outs by offeringfree tutoring services to slumchildren in the Los Angeles, SanFrancisco, and San Diego areas.Anything that's peaceful and vol­untary, as Leonard Read says, isa proper means of getting to theGreat Society. Instead, GrahamWallas is being heeded, thoughhis 1914 ideas have already failedwherever they have been tried. ~

~ THE MIND AND ART OF AL­BERT JAY NOCK by Robert M.Crunden (Chicago: Henry Reg­

nery Company, 1964). 230 pp.,

$4.95.

Reviewed by Robert M. Thornton

THIS IS the first full-length studyof Albert Jay Nock, and happilyfor admirers of that "superfluous

man" Mr. Crunden's primary in­terest is not the personal life ofhis subject but rather what theman thought and how he came tothink it.

In a scholarly fashion Crundentells of Nock's public career as aman of letters and discusses sys­tematically the men who exertedthe greatest intellectual influenceon him - Matthew Arnold, Her­bert Spencer, Henry George, andFranz Oppenheimer. He also ex­plains Nock's fondness for suchdiverse personalities as the littleappreciated "humorist" of CivilWar days, Artemus Ward; theoften misunderstood Frenchwriter of the sixteenth century,Francis Rabelais; and the can­tankerous Mayor of New York inthe early 1900's, William JayGaynor.

Crunden fully realizes thatNock cannot be neatly pigeon­holed. With some justification hemight be called a nineteenth cen­tury liberal (he was in favor ofrepealing laws and reducing gov­ernment interference to a mini­mum) , or a conservative (hewished to preserve everythingworth saving and refused to enter­tain the illusion that society canand should be made over at thewhim of reformers), or a radical(he sought true reforms andscoffed at the superficial changesthat usually leave things worse

1965 OTHER BOOKS 63

than before). But Crunden is nodoubt right in tagging AlbertJayNock a Jeffersonian, for Nock, likeour third President, instinctivelychampioned the cause of individ­ual liberty against governmentintervention, even when the lat­ter came disguised as benevo­lence.

Crunden not only discussesNock's ideas and the books heread, but he also evaluates theideas in the air during the man'slifetime. Crunden regards Nockas one of the early challengers ofthe collectivist ideology that be­gan to enjoy popular acceptanceduring the first half of the twen­tieth century; as such, Nock wasone of the founding fathers of thepresent-day libertarian-conserva­tive movement.

Nock was one of the few intel­lectuals of his day not guilty ofwhat has been called "the treasonof the clerks." He never lost hisfaith in the power of ideas, andthus stood apart from thosearound him who rushed out to"do something." He knew thatright thinking must precede rightaction and that you change theworld only by changing individ­uals - a job not to be accom­plished by any sort of "machinery"such as world government, dis­armament, or welfare legislation.

Another thing separating Nockfrom many "intellectuals" was

the essential Christianity behindso many of his views. He opposedgovernment doles, for instance, onthe grounds that if it is truly"more blessed to give than to re­ceive," then government take­over of charity deprives us of oneof the great joys of life. He dis­trusted many government activ­ities, not simply because they werequestionable politically and eco­nomically but because the totali­tarian state encourages a slavementality among its citizens anddiscourages the sense of individualresponsibility to one's God. Itmay be argued that Nock was ahighly religious man (but not inthe conventional sense) althoughmany would class him as a heretic.Likely, he would have concurredwith their opinion! Nock was notespecially interested in "organ­ized Christianity" for his religionwas that of the first centuryChristians, a religion that was "atemper, a frame of mind . . . .""Religion," he wrote, "is the high­est effort of the human spirit to­wards perfection; it is an enthusi­astic inward motion towards whatSt. Paul called 'the fruits of thespirit.' "

It must be emphasized thatCrunden offers us, not indiscrim­inate acclaim of his subject but adisinterested work, the fruit ofdiligent research and seriousstudy.

64 THE FREEMAN March

A. J. Nock's great value, saysCrunden, is that whether youagree with him or not, he will ir­ritate you into thought. As a crit­ic of high order Nock is "abra­sive, insistent, and immovable."And, continues Mr. Crunden, "itis as critic and not as politicalthinker, of whatever label, thatNock should be remembered. Hewas far more a gadfly than an ex­pounder of a fixed position. If, asshould be obvious by now, he was

often wrong, misguided, or sim­ply eccentric, he was unfailinglyhis own man - incorruptible, un­shakably honest. If he was alsosuperfluous, it was both the faultof, and a loss to, the country whichuncomprehendingly brought hisire and his intellect to life.... Nomatter where he stood, he did notseem to belong. He could onlyspatter ink on the most outra­geous of the world's blemishes,and return to his own garden." ~

The Cost of Eating

A NATION'S STANDARD OF LIVING can be thought of as being in­

versely proportional to the percentage of its labor force required

to produce food. Compare the United States' 7 per cent on the

farm with Canada's 10 per cent, West Germany's 13 per cent,

Japan's 33 per cent, Russia's 39 per cent, India's 70 per cent, and

Communist China's 87 per cent.

ELLISON L. HAZARD, President, Continental Can Company, from

an address, "The Real Danger in Automation," October 9, 1964.