The Freeman 1980 - Foundation for Economic Education · 452 THE FREEMAN August organisms but mistakes those caused by infectious ideas for other things. They are called wars, or crusades,

the

FreemanVOL. 30, NO.8 • AUGUST 1980

International Terrorism:The Deadliest Plague Ben Barker 451

Virulent ideas sown in a susceptible populace can produce deadlyplagues.

Spending Limits Are Not Enough John semmens 459Reduced spending and taxation should enable government tofunction more appropriately.

Totalitarian Collectivism in America Jack D. Douglas 463How freedom is lost to the two great political deceptions of massequality and mass welfare.

The Imitation of England Clarence B. Carson 470The United States has followed the path toward socialism as firsttrod by England.

Idealism and Students P. Dean Russell 484A professor urges students to choose careers in the business ofserving others within the market.

The Sphere of GovernmentNineteenth Century Theories:2. Herbert Spencer Henry Ha~lItt 486

In the contest of man versus the state, a call for laissez faire.

Facing the Moral Attack on Capitalism Juliana Geran Pilon 493Government-enforced "social justice" leads to inequalities.

Follow the Leader? Constance Robertson 499Individual ethics as the alternative to the tyranny of mass move-ments.

Knowledge and Decisions Allan C. Brownfeld 502An article-review of the book by Professor Thomas Sowell.

Book Revktws: 508"The World in the Grip of an Idea" by Clarence B. Carson"Free to Choose: A Personal Statement" by Milton and RoseFriedman

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

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Some articles available as reprints at cost; state quantity desired. Permissiongranted to reprint any article from this issue, with appropriate credit except "Totalitarian Collectivism in America," "The Sphere of Government," and "Follow theLeader?"

GOVERNMENTS around the globetoday shudder in the grip of a violent force as ancient as that whichtook the life of biblical Abel. Oneafter another, nations are shuttingdown normal channels of international diplomacy and replacingthem with the brutal tactics of terrorism and war. Both advanced andprimitive social orders lurch fromcrisis to crisis, eventually beingwrenched asunder by rebelliousforces who sprout humanisticrhetoric while slaughtering all whooppose them.

These forces are often terroristsand they speak with the voice ofguns. They claim to be advancecadres of liberation armies but theirintent appears to be to liberate hu-

Ben Barker, M.D., of Oxnard, California Is a specialist In psychiatry and contemporary therapeutic techniques.

Ben Barker

manity from any trace of the veneerof civilization which still exists.

What are the roots of terrorism?Why have terrorist tactics sothoroughly saturated modern political behavior? Is there any possibilityof restoration of less violent modesof persuasion or is our time destinedto sink beneath a morass of mutualslaughter? These questions hang inthe wind, haunting our era. Unlessanswers are found, and soon, the fireof terrorism may decimate the entire civilized world.

Epidemics race through susceptible populations, leaving death anddisability in their wake. If theepidemic is virulent enough or hostresistance low enough, entire nations may fall and in restrospectonly is it then labeled a plague. Thehistorical record acknowledgesplagues caused by infectious micro-

451

452 THE FREEMAN August

organisms but mistakes thosecaused by infectious ideas for otherthings. They are called wars, orcrusades, or invasions, or migrations, or a host ofother names whichdisguise the infectious origin of theideas which precipitated the eventsconsidered.

Virulent, destructive ideas resemble infectious micro-organisms inthat they do not disappear-the hostorganisms merely develop resistance. The original Black Plaguebacillus is still with humanity, waiting for the conditions to recur whichonce allowed it to run amuck. So isthe polio virus, the syphilisspirochete and the tuberculosis bacterium. In a similar way, Hitler'sideas on racial superiority are stillaround and still causing problems.

Ideas Have Consequences

The epidemic of terrorism nowwith us is the natural and inevitableconsequence of ideologies almostuniversally endorsed and supportedby existing governments and dominant institutions. This is especiallytrue of institutions of higher education. The more these ideologies proliferate and the more complete theirsocietal implementation, the morelikely are they to result in the destruction of all existing governments' social orders and institutions. This includes, but is not limited to, institutions of higher education.

The apparently diverse mix ofideas which have linked to spawnterrorism appear more similar inwhat they deny than in what theyadvocate. Marxism, hedonism anddeterminism all agree that man orhis creations (the state or social order) are the ultimate arbiters of individual behavior. In so doing theydeny the existence and preeminenceof a source of behavioral standardsexternal to the mind of man. Thatcould be a suicidal mistake.

The significance of this denial ofan external primary source of morality is that morality must thenspring from subjective sources. Social orders which take this first stepseal their own fate, only the mannerof death is in question, for the FirstRule of government is therebyabandoned. That rule is that government must serve the commongood. If this rule of right is lost in aculture it is but a matter of timebefore all traces of that culture sinkinto the abyss of timeless anonymity.

When confusion and subjectivityenter a social order and the common .good is no longer self-evident, thenthat society is in danger of extinction. But what is the common good?Merely that which has stood the testof time as being fair and equitable.This also defines justice, and forjustice to serve its function properlyit should be a concrete, recognizableand objective principle. The appro-

1980 INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM: THE DEADLIEST PLAGUE 453

priate implementation of justice,then, is based upon the common acceptance of objective principles ofbehavior-or upon morality.

As is obvious, searching for a definition of morality, justice or thecommon good becomes an exercise incircuitous logic unless a realitywhich precedes and is independentof man's mind is acknowledged.Such a reality, whether it is labeledGod, Tao, the natural order or whatever, is precisely what modernman-centered ideologies deny. Thisdenial has helped to bring on thecurrent plague of terrorism, anduntil this truth is recognized byenough thinking men we will remain infected by this virulent force.

The Rule of Expedience

When the rule of right is abandoned, it is most often replaced bythe rule of expedience. Whose expedience? If the expedience of thewealthy few, then we have oligarchy, if the state bureaucracy itself,then we have socialism. In any case,the rule of right is defunct and replaced by a subjective code implemented through the use of coercive tactics. This is the rule of forceand the rule of force is lawlessness:it says that you may do whateveryou please to your neighbor, provided your weapons are morenumerous and deadlier than his.

In such circumstances any forcethat works will receive societal

sanction, for standards of moralityare no longer applicable. Can it betrue that even the U.S., born of theConstitution and nurtured on theprinciples of the Bible, has succumbed to the rule of force? Let usexamine the evidence.

In her 1957 book Atlas Shrugged,author Ayn Rand defined appropriate government as follows, ((Theonly proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect youfrom criminals; the army, to protectyou from foreign invaders; and thecourts, to protect your property andcontracts from breach or fraud byothers, to settle disputes by rationalrules, according to objective law."

This is a definition that appears toresemble the ideal that the U.S.founding fathers had in mind whenthe Constitution and Bill of Rightswere drafted and implemented. Itendorses a concept of limited government intervention in the affairsof citizens. In the same work quotedabove, Rand goes on to describe herversion of a government gone berserk.

UBut a government that initiatesthe employment of force againstmen who had forced no one ... is anightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality. Sucha government reverses its onlymoral purpose and switches fromthe role of protector to the role ofman's deadliest enemy, from therole of policeman to the role of a


criminal vested with the right to thewielding of violence against victimsdeprived of the right of self-defense."

Violation of Property

It is especially inimical to libertyand justice if government fails torespect private property. So it follows that if government uses coercion to extract private property orwealth from one citizen in order todistribute it to another it has abandoned the rule ofright in favor of therule of force. The victims are theinventive, productive, thinkingminority who have been hoodwinked into accepting an ideologywhich betrays their minds.

All property and all forms ofwealth are produced by man's mindand his directed, purposeful labor.In a free society, each productiveperson has the right to determinethe disposition of his own property(wealth, products, services). Totalitarian societies, on the otherhand, often forcefully take propertyaway from individuals and dispenseit as the government sees fit.

It does not make the governmentany less evil or totalitarian if itdispenses such forcefully lootedproperty to other needy citizens,other needy countries, or simply retains it within its own coffers. Thecommon good has been breached, forcoercion was used to take privateproperty from a productive citizen.The basic premise of the ideology of

Marxist socialism is, ttfrom each according to his ability, to each according to his need." This premise thusappears to fly in the face of the ruleof justice.

A state which implements thissocialist premise will use force ifnecessary to take assets from theproductive and distribute them tothe indolent. Do the income tax andwelfare systems accomplish thisend? Does my neighbor's need entitle him to use a gun to remove foodfrom my table? Does handing thegun to an agent of the state makethe actual act of armed robbery lessevil?

Forms of Lawlessness

The use of force to accomplishends not in the interest of the common good is lawlessness, whetherdone in the name of a national government or a so-called LiberationFront. The use of the process of education to inculcate abandonment ofmorality endorses lawlessnesswhether accomplished with government funds in modern colleges orin jungle huts in Africa. The use ofpublic funds to purchase murder islawlessness whether it buys the firing squads of Ayatollah Khomeinior the suction catheters of the abortionists.

When enough Americans learn torecognize identities, we will understand why terrorism is sweeping theglobe. The Marxist ideology which

1980 INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM: THE DEADLIEST PLAGUE 455

saturates the halls of higher education both here and abroad endorsesthe rule of force and abandons therule of justice when it disavows private property. It places the mythicalstate in the place of God, and in sodoing replaces the rule, of objectivemorality with the rule of subjectiveexpedience. Such a system deniessomething very basic to the humanbeing and results in destruction anddissolution, not love and sharing.

The something basic that iscrushed is very likely the spiritwithin, which requires a moral environment in order to achieve expression.. Individualists are compelled to flee or rebel against a socialsystem which demands conformity,for mindless conformity. is alien totheir personalities. Some, the terrorists, are fascinated by and drawnto violent rebellion. They are thelawless breed spawned. by governments which have abandoned therule of right in favor of the rule offorce.

So that is quite possibly why onlookers experience ambivalence toterrorist scenarios. When two lawless gangs engage in combat theresult is entertainment, not a moralconflict. From the murder of theIsraeli athletes at the 1972 MunichOlympics to· the current stalematein Iran, one glaring theme prevails:terrorism is theater. It seems justand fitting that an'era so hypnotizedby the myopic, numbing 'gaze of

television should bring into beingoutlaws who gauge their effectiveness by the amount of prime-timecoverage they garner.

A Barrage of Violence

Day after day, sacraments of violence are flashed. into our homes tooutrage, thrill, titillate and amazeus. Tourists are shot down or blownapart in airports, children assaulted, executives and politicianssnatched or slain. And with eachescalation of violence our sensationsaturated culture grows more indifferent and jaded. The passive acceptance of these heinous. events mayin itself be as dangerous an omen asthe terrorist acts themselves, for itsuggests a culture insensitive to evil.,

Often, in fact, the perpetrators ofthese violent assaults are accorded aglamorous notoriety akin to thatgiven motion picture idols. The bold,reckless and flamboyant nature oftheir deeds appears to excite admiration and the antisocial, destruc~

tive aspect of their actions is nearlyoverlooked. Such,then, have becomethe heroes in this age of decadence:nihilistic malcontents who lay downthe lives of others··at random in theguise of a noble cause.

To heap adulation upon such individuals is but one more symptom ofthe demise of morality in our socialorder. An element in producing thisstate of affairs has been the misconception that absolute, unrestricted


personal freedom was not only possible but desirable in a social setting. The perverse effect which follows from this concept is that theultimate good is pleasure, and thatfull gratification· of the appetitesand passions is a worthwhile individual aim.

This philosophy of hedonism hasalso been cultivated by our institutions and commercial enterprises.Such an ideology compels the believer to view the social order withits restrictions, rules and regulations as an inhibiting influenceupon his behavior. Thus, this is alsoa philosophy of lawlessness.

By contrast, in a society in whichmoral precepts function as a guide tothe equity of human and propertyrights, internal individual controlsfunction as powerful tools of behavioral restraint. If the majority ofcitizens truly believe that stealing iswrong, then they will choose not tosteal and the job of guarding property will be relatively easy. Repeated reiteration of the moral code,especially to the young, will serve toinculcate within them the capacityfor shame. Shame is, in such cases, apainful emotion caused by the consciousness of guilt, shortcoming orimpropriety. The susceptibility tothis emotion will be especiallymarked in those families in whichthe parents appear to function bythe same moral code they teachtheir children.

So, we see another ideology whichis an obvious invitation to socialdisaster. Hedonists place sensual enjoyment at the pinnacle of theirpreference code, and the end justifiesthe means. The Marxist places themythical proletariat at his pinnacle,and again the ends justify anymeans. Likewise, the Machiavellianpower brokers playing the game ofcontrol and dominance in all thecapitals of the world worship endsand rationalize all means as acceptable.

Blaming the Environment

The individual capacity for shameis diminished by yet another prevalent modern idea, that is the conceptthat man is no more then the finalresult of the forces acting upon him.In this ideology, man cannot beguilty of wrongdoing. The blame iscast upon the environment andhence evaded by transference andprojection. The terrorist, it wouldpropose, is not an evil, angry manacting on his own destructive impulses, he is merely another victimof society. He has been passivelyinfected, so to speak.

Man, thus, is not responsible forhis own lawlessness-it is hereditaryor due to any number of externalforces. The blame must belong to thenon-criminal who has somehow fostered the repugnant chain of reactions we call crime. Intrinsic to thisideology of determinism is that the

1980 INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM: THE DEADLIEST ,PLAGUE 457

personality of an individual is almost solely a consequence of socialinteractions, especially his early infantile relationships.

But is that true? Anyone who haswatched newborn infants in a nursery knows that these squirming,screaming miniature humans arenot inert lumps of clay. Each one isdifferent somehow from all the restand from all who have gone before orwho will follow. Determinists creditdiffering intrauterine environmentsor differing chromosomal make-upfor these inherent differences in response patterns. Perhaps they arecorrect.

Perhaps, though, what we see innewborn infants is the initial expression of free will. Within eachthere may be a spirit beyond man'sintellectual comprehension whichmodifies and shapes the individualistic responses to identical external stimuli. Perhaps, too, this undefinable spirit within possesses boththe capacity for moral behavior andfor wrongdoing, and the direction inwhich it moves is influenced by thefree will of the organism.

Free Will

Free will is, always has been, andalways will be a major causativeelement underlying specificindividual behavior. It cannot be ignored merely because it cannot bequantified by behavioral scientists.People who will themselves toward

success tend to enjoy full, stimulating lives and tend to minimize dullness and repetition in their careerchoices. Is it not possible that terrorists and major criminals of othertypes engage a similar motivationalmechanism into their personalityand will themselves toward crime?

The drive to achieve power, notoriety and excitement can be expressed in ways very harmful tosociety, and that appears to be whathappens in the case of the unrepentant criminal. Any number of legendary lawbreakers in published biographies and autobiographies refer tothe stimulating challenges theyfound in their calling. Malcolm X, inhis ghost-written autobiographywas specific and particularlygraphic in describing the thrills associated with his life of crime anddebauchery. His conversion to theMuslim religion and to an accompanying life style of evangelisticfervor and self-denial speak stronglyfor the role of free-will in modifyingbehavior.

What is missing in the ideology ofdeterminism is any absolute standard of moral conduct. Neither justice nor a viable social order may bepossible without such standardsand it is this truth that the voice ofguns is spelling out to us all.

So, the plague of terrorism sweepsthe globe, invading host nationswhose resistances are impeded byideologies which either foster or for-

458 THE FREEMAN

give terrorist acts. As long ashedonistic and Marxist ideologiesdominate the intellectual climate ofour colleges and universities theseinstitutions will turn out productswho will serve the rule ofexpediencerather than the rule of morality.

As long as governments and. thecriminal justice system endorse andimplement an ideology which defines the lawbreaker as the passivevictim of external forces we willbreed more lawbreakers. When lawbreakers are coddled, not punished,then the rule of justice is extinct.

It is possible that the deadlyplague of terrorism now loose in theworld is but a warning of worse

Violence as a Way of Life

times to come. Perhaps if men ofthought and action take steps torestore the rule of morality to governmentour drift into lawless chaosmay be reversed.. Liberty, privateproperty and.· objective standards ofmoral behavior are inextricablylinked in a, free society. One cannot be sacrificed without the otherseventually tumbling away.

Unless we take warning, ((Fromeach according to his abilitY,to eachaccording to his need" may soundthe death knell. to civilization. Theterrorists may merely be one ofmany deadly plagues that we maysoon face. i

IDEAS ON

UBERTY

I can still remember when the income of farmers came from willing exchange; when people lived in houses ,built with the fruits of their ownlabor; when wage earners, for the most part, were no more compelled tojoin unions than businessmen were forced into·chamber of commercemembership or parents into the P.T.A. Violence as a way of life was inthose days perhaps at an all-time minimum.

Man either accepts the idea that the Creator is the endower of rights,or he submits to the idea that the state is theendower of rights. There isno third alternative.

Those who accept the Creator concept, can never subscribe' to .thepractice of violence in any form. They have been drawn to this concept,not coerced into it. Ifwe would emulate, as nearly as we can, that whichwe have learned from this relationship, we, would confine ourselves tothis same drawing power. As Gerald Heard so clearly puts it: uMan isfree to torture and torment himself until he sees that his methods arenot those of his Maker."

LEONARDE. READ

SPENDING LIMITS

ARE NOT ENOUGH

THE enormous increase in government expenditures over the last fIftyyears has inspired efforts to placesome sort of control on the expansion of government budgets. Onepopular approach, favored by theNational Taxpayers Union, wouldenact a Constitutional amendmentrequiring a balanced budget. Another approach, favored by economist Milton Friedman, would limitgovernment revenues to a fixed percentage of the national income.

While these ideas have merit asdevices for placing some degree ofconstraint on the government's consumption of resources, they are notenough. In fact, unless such proposals are explicitly recognized asinterim measures, they could lay thegroundwork for a more serious erosion of property rights later on.

The balanced budget proposal fo-

Mr. Semmens Is an economist for the Arizona Department of Transportation and Is studying for anadvanced degree In business administration atArizona State University.

cuses on the government's deficitbetween receipts and expenditures.Beyond question, the perpetual resort to deficit finance must result inthe diversion of resources from theprivate sector to the government'scoffers. This can happen eitherthrough the ~~crowdingout" of wouldbe private borrowers when largepublic debt issues absorb availableinvestment capital, or by inflatingthe money supply. The ~~crowding

out" phenomenon shifts resourcesfrom more productive private purposes to less productive governmentpurposes. Inflation employs legalmeans to diminish the value of alldollar holdings and fixed income receipts. The havoc wrought in thecorporate bond markets, where toprated bonds issued when interestrates were two and three percentnow sell for fractions of their original cost, is a dramatic demonstration of the ill effects of bothphenomena.

Stopping these ill effects is aworthy objective, but a balanced

459


budget alone will not achieve it. Thegovernment may just as easily balance the budget by raising taxes asby cutting. spending. An increase intaxes does not require Congressional action. The government hasall the power it needs to increasetaxes without going through thetrouble of enacting new levies, although the enthusiasm shown forthe imposition of a uwindfall profits"tax on oil illustrates the willingnessof Congress to use manufacturedcrises as a means of raising taxes.Because the tax system is ttprogressive," Le., the rates increase as thetaxable resource rises in nominalvalue, the government can raisetaxes by inflating the money supply.The heart of the President's plan tobalance the budget is to increase thetax take by pushing taxpayers intohigher tax brackets.

While a balanced budget might bean improvement over the currentsituation, the key weakness of sucha device as a control over government spending is that it says nothing about the magnitude of thatspending. The primary evil in government spending is not that it isdeficit spending, but that it is consuming ever larger proportions ofthe nation's wealth. In the last 50years, the government's ((take" ofthe national income has risen fromunder 15 per cent to over 40 percent. It is to remedy this situationthat we have the proposals to limit

government spending as a percentage of the national income.

Spending limitation measureshave been discussed and even, insome jurisdictions, passed as ameans of controlling the government's appropriation of resources.Without limits, the projected outcome of existing trends is for thegovernment to consume the entirenational income within 30 years. Anumber of proposals have been introduced in Congress. Whether anyof these can serve as a real constraint on spending, however, isdoubtful. On the one hand, it is afundamental principle of legislativeprocedure that a subsequent body ofCongress cannot be bound by anaction of a prior body of Congress.Any limitations legislated in onesession may be overridden.by a simple majority vote in a later session.It is obvious, then, that if a spendinglimit is to be binding, it must comein the form of a Constitutionalamendment.

Limiting spending by Constitutional means was the route taken bythe Arizona Legislature in 1978.The problem with virtually all of theproposals to use Constitutionalmeans is the overwhelming reluctance to draw a hard line on thespending issue. Such was the case inArizona. While the Constitutionnow limits state spending to no morethan 7 per cent of the personal income of the inhabitants, the deter-

1980 SPENDING LIMITS ARE NOT ENOUGH 461

mination of what constitutes statespending is a matter of legislativeenactment. Not all state spending isstate spending, or so it seems. Certain categories of revenues and outlays are declared exempt from thespending ceiling. Curiously, therationale for exemptions is that services rendered for fees should beexcluded from the spending limit.This says much about the characterof the remaining outlays-namely,that they are not services renderedfor fees. This is an admission thatthe bulk of state government expenditures are for activities that wouldnot be purchased on a fee basis.

One should not be surprised todiscover attempts at reclassificationof which expenditures are to beexempt. It is barely a year since theenactment of the Arizona spendinglimit and the legislature has alreadypassed a measure designed toexempt additional gasoline taxesfrom the 7 per cent limit.

The fundamental problem withthe spending limits proposed to dateis the lack of respect for basic private property rights. The proposalsrest on the premise that the government is entitled to take as muchof the national income as it needs.This explains the universal provision for loopholes and escapeclauses. In essence, the spendinglimit proposals are concessions tothe current taxpayer outrage. Thegovernment is willing to reach a

temporary compromise and agree tolimit itself to a specified percentage-unless it needs more for unforeseen ((emergencies."

Valid as a contingency plan mightbe-the usual example is a conjuredvision of world war-it will beabused. The government itself cancreate the emergency through itsown ineptitude or malicious intent.The ((emergency" in Arizona is thedeterioration of the road system. Ifthe rather drawn out consequencesof inadequate highway maintenancecan qualify as an ((unforeseen emergency" that necessitates a breach ofthe spending limit, then there is, infact, no spending limit.

Arbitrary spending limits concedethe government too much. The involuntary nature of taxation hasenabled government to decide foritself how much it will take from itscitizens. Merely fixing a percentagelimit does not deal with the validissue of the purposes of governmentactivity. It is all too likely thatspending limits will serve tolegitimize a claim to a portion of thenational income that is not subjectto question. If the government provides some services or encountersHemergencies" it will have little difficulty enlarging its take.

If there are genuine functions tobe performed by governments, thenthe historical experience of man'seconomic activities quite clearly indicates that the proportion of income

462 THE FREEMAN

consumed in the provision of suchservices should be declining. No services can be more valuable or necessary than the provision of food,clothing, and shelter. The marketplace has been coping with the provision ofthese items for years. In thelast 50 years, the proportion of thenational income consumed in theproduction of food, clothing, andshelter has declined by 33 per cent,50 per cent, and 17 per cent respectively.

The efficiency of the free marketis responsible for the decline in costof these fundamentals of life. Thepressure of competition drivessuppliers to cut costs. The prosperityengendered by the free market enables consumers' real income to riseso that individuals can afford morethan just the necessities.

The government is not subject tothe forces of the marketplace. Asa result, the proportion of the national income consumed in the public sector has risen by 212 per centduring the past half-century. Insulated from competition, governmentbecomes less and less efficient.Bureaus and rules proliferate, consuming more resources to do less.Unable to generate a desirable product, government, via legislation,simply helps itself to larger sharesof consumers' income.

Logic and experience warn thatentitling the government to a fixedcut of the national income or de-

manding that its budgets be balanced is not enough. The government acts beyond the beneficialguidance of the market regimen.This has bred a sloppiness that hasled to a dangerous obesity of thepublic sector. For its own good, thegovernment must be put on a morehealthy diet. Its intake must bematched by its output. As much as ispossible of its activities must be cutfree from the tax-fed trough. Services that are conducive to operatingon a fee basis should be placed on afee basis. Services which are notconducive to such an arrangementrequire an alternative regimen.Since, by definition, such servicescannot be marketed, we must simulate the discipline of the marketplace. One apparent means ofdoing this would be to enforce spending reductions. Just as the shares ofnational income going to the production of food, clothing, and shelterhave been reduced, so too shouldgovernment's share be reduced. Ashrinking spending limit could serveas an artificial simulation for thepressures of competition.

Bloated as it is, the governmentcannot handle even its traditionalresponsibilities. It cannot protect itsown diplomats. It cannot keep thestreets safe. For its own good and forour own good, the government's debilitating obesity must be more thanhalted, it must be reversed. Spending and taxation must be reduced.@)

Jack D. Douglas

TotalitarianCollectivism

•InAmerica

UNOTHING IS more striking to aEuropean traveller in the UnitedStates than the absence of what weterm . . . government." So wroteAlexis de Tocqueville of Americansociety in the 1830s. What American in 1980 could possibly think ofour society as one characterized byan U absence of government"?

Government at all levels now directly controls nearly forty percentof our wealth through direct taxation, yet anyone with a smatteringof economic knowledge knows thatthe indirect taxation mandated bygovernment regulation is also· huge.

Dr. Doug•• Ia Prole.or of Sociology at Ilia Unlver.tty of CallfomlB al San Dlago, though hla atudIH ofhuman action ..nge beyond Ilia ....I pro...lonal oracademic bounda of any one dlaclpllne. He lin writtltn and ectltlcl twenty-five booka on varloua _peetaof Ilia aoclal aclancea and hla artie'" haw appea..dIn many pro"'lonal Journala and ot"r publlcatlona.

Thla article Ia from ilia preface of hla book, TIte."", of the Wella,. sra., forthcoming.

American society today is agovernment-controlled society, a society in which all ofus are controlledin innumerable ways by a vastnumber of proliferating governmentbureaucracies, agencies, committees, police powers, legislativebodies, judicial decisions.

Tocqueville recognized that government powers might somedaygrow in America into the huge bureaucratic administration of lifethat had earlier characterized themercantilist monarchies of Europe.He realized that the welfare of anynation necessitated the legislationof general principles for the wholesociety by the central government.But he had forebodings that theAmerican government would go farbeyond that and turn mass democracy into democratic tyranny. If thecentral power, he argued, Uafterhaving established the general prin-

463


ciples of government ... descendedto the details of their application;and if, having regulated the greatinterests of the country, it could descend to the circle of individualinterests, freedom would soon bebanished from the New World." Anyeducated American in 1980 knowsthat our huge government bureaucracies now dictate minute details ofour everyday lives and enforce theirdictates with vast police powers.

America Today anImperial Bureaucracy

America today is ruled by an Imperial State Bureaucracy headed byan Imperial President. Certainlythere are significant differences inthe forms of our imperial government; but any historian of the ancient imperial states or of those ofthe sixteenth-century mercantilistmonarchies will easily recognizethat the differences are only surfacephenomena, while the basic realitiesof power and its administration arevery much the same.

It is only political rhetoric and theignorance of history now almostuniversal even among our so-callededucated people that makes it possible for people to pretend that««America is still the land of liberty."Certainly America is still more freeby far than those nations now ruledover by the terrible socialist statebureaucracies. Indeed, we are stillsignificantly more free than the

cowed peoples of the democraticsocialist nations of Scandinavia,once-Great Britain and elsewhere.But anyone who has studied thetrends of recent decades knows thatwe are closing the political gap between ourselves and their statetyrannies at a terrifying rate.

We scholars who several years agohoped selfishly that we might atleast be spared in our lifetime theterrors of pseudo-democratic statetyrannies must now recognize thatour hopes are fading rapidly. Wesocial scientists know that in thepast few years alone the federalbureaucracy has moved relentlesslyto establish committees at all ouruniversities to review our researchand, thereby, to control what we canknow and say about our society.What greater power can any government possibly wield than thepower to determine what can beknown and how it can or cannot beknown?

And yet there has been no greatoutcry, no widespread screams ofoutrage or anguish from our people.The reason for that is that they arefirmly in the grip of the myth of thewelfare state, the myth that theirindividual welfare depends uponand is served by the ineluctableratchet-up in state powers. They believe this myth for many irrationalnon-reasons. The politicians arepaying them off with their owntax-monies and erstwhile liberties:

1980 TOTALITARIAN COLLECTIVISM IN AMERICA 465

the politicians use police powers totake from them their wealth andtheir individual liberties to determine how they will live, and thenreturn part of this to them undergovernment constraints-but onlyon the proviso that they support thepoliticians who use police powers totake away their wealth and theirliberties. It is not too difficult to seehow our peoples, in the grip of thegreat temptation of greed and mystified by the pseudo-science theoriesthat tell them it is all necessary tosurrender their liberties in order tohave liberties, can be so easily deceived.

Even more ominous than the relative lack of outcry from our peoplehas been the lack of serious outcryfrom our intellectuals and scientists.Most ominous of all, it is they whohave been clamoring the loudest forever greater imperial state controls.It is even the academics who administer the thought control programs of the federal bureaucraciesnow trying to dictate how we shalldo research. Those who rememberthat it was the intellectuals andsocial scientists in Germany whoclamored for more state power overGerman life, and they who repressedany opposition to Nazi thought controls once they came to power, willrecognize that the seeds of massdemocratic tyranny are alreadyfirmly planted in our society.

The most effective tyranny, and

thus the most terrible tyranny, isalways imposed by the people uponthemselves, at least in the beginning, and they have almost alwaysdone such an irrational thing onlywhen their intellectual leaders haveconvinced them that such tyranny isnecessary and good-that it willserve the greatest welfare of thepeople themselves.

Political Deceptions

Mass democratic tyranny willprobably always be built upon thetwo great political deceptions ofmass equality and mass welfare.Those deceptions will take manyspecific forms, always conforming tothe particular political rhetoric already widely shared in a particularsociety, but the general messagewill be the same and so will theresult.

In a mass democracy that hastriumphed over all traditional values there is no truth, no justice, nosocial welfare beyond that of thevoice of the people. The people determine what is just and good-theydetermine everything by their votes.One man, one vote. One vote, oneunit of truth and morality. Majorityrules. More votes, more truth, moremorality. As our ttliberal" intellectualstoday would say, what could bemore conducive to the general welfare than for all individuals to havean equal voice (vote) in decidingwhat is to their welfare? Even when


they do not say so, most of our intellectuals have now so completely absorbed this tenet of mass democracythat they have nothing but contempt for those who try to remindthem of the ancient truth that directrule by collective ignorance-bymobocracy-always leads in time totyranny, first to the tyranny of themajority and then to the tyranny ofthe few when the ignorance of themajority has produced its inevitablesocial catastrophes.

In America today the same nuclear physicist who would laugh uproariously at the thought that theaverage businessman should have avote on whether to allow physiciststo study the atom would immediately turn around and insistthat he as a citizen and nothingmore should have the right to voteon whether the owners of Texas gaswells should have the right to settheir own prices for their gas,whether the Federal Reserve shouldincrease the money supply at a faster rate, or whether the federal· government should Ustimulate" theinternational economy by runningbudget deficits and Utalking down"the dollar in exchange markets.

The same sociologist who assertswith contempt that the averagepolitician knows nothing about therealities ofdrug use and their effectswould assert with aplomb, andwithout thinking to consult a singlestudy or learning. economic theory,

that the government should ((solve"the problem of inflation by imposingwage and price controls upon allthose businessmen who Uset theirprices to rip-off obscene profits."

And the average citizen voter,who can barely read at the so-calledtenth grade level, asserts blandlythat his votes justify the politicians'use of police powers to dictate todoctors the standards of medicalcare and the maximum charges theycan ask for their services.

Confusing the Issue

Why? Why does the physicistthink he should have a vote to determine what price Texas gas owners can ask for their gas, whereas itis ludicrous for the Texan to vote onwhether the physicist be allowed toinvestigate the atom? Because, saysthe physicist, the price of gas is a((political question" that affects usall, not a question of scientific fact.But our physicists have forgottenthat there are few things in a worldof interdependent markets that donot affect almost everything else insome way. What could be more important in determining thefuture-or lack of future-of allhuman beings than nuclear research? By our physicist's own standards, what, then, could be more((political," and thus more subject todecision by mass vote, than nuclearphysics?

And, if our sociologist can use his


vote to dictate the asking price forgas in Texas, why cannot the gasowner use his vote to dictate thegrading standards of the sociologist,or his hiring standards, or his subject of research?

And is it not totally logical for thesame politician who dictates medical standards and prices ofdoctors to

. dictate for our Mr. and Mrs.Everyperson the standards of theirwork, the prices of their labor, andultimately the standards of theirmost intimate acts and thoughts?

The logic of totalitarian collectivism is simple, brutal and entirelyconsistent. Once a people has decided, whether actively or morecommonly, by default, to allowpoliticians to decide by legislation,and without severe constraints ofcustom or law, what is right andwrong in a basic realm of life likeproperty rights, then there can be nological constraint upon their exercise of power in other realms of life.

As John Locke saw, even in thevastly more simple and selfcontained society of the seventeenthcentury, without property rights noother rights can long be sustained.The government that controls all ofmy property controls my right to thepursuit of happiness, my right tofree speech and to the publication ofthat speech, my right to take aspouse or have children, my right tolife itself-for all things of life aretotally dependent upon the material

goods and the subjective controls ofthose goods we call property andproperty rights. The governmentthat has the right to legislate gasprices in Texas, or income distribution nationwide, has every logicalright to dictate research standardsin physics, hiring standards insociology, wage rates for black teenagers in New York, parental carestandards for all parents, andeverything else in life.

Totalitarian Logic

When the American people usedthe power of their votes to give thepoliticians the power to legislateaway our ancient economic rightsthey unknowingly gave them powerto legislate away all our ancientrights. The American Imperial StateBureaucracy is now pursuing thatrelentless logic of totalitarian collectivism at an astounding rate. Onceour people had accepted that totalitarian logic, there was nothingleft to protect us but our isolatedindividual sense of outrage and ourunderground resistance movements.Each sector of the economy, eachcorporation, each besieged individual is now left alone to fight hisrearguard resistance against theunconstrained might of the CommonWelfare, the Welfare State.

The welfare state is built on thetotalitarian logic: when the goal ofthe state becomes that of pursuing,without basic constraints of custom


or law, the common welfare of all,then the welfare of any individual orsub-group becomes irrelevant. Thuswe eventually arrive at the logicalconclusion of the Egalitarian Welfare State, the conclusion Rousseaureached two centuries ago: the equalwelfare of all demands that the individual welfares of everyone be totally sacrificed. And so the modernjuggernaut of the Welfare Statetrundles onward, crushing beneathits bureaucratic powers the ancientfreedoms of one group afteranother-to serve the Welfare ofAll, of course. Today the businessmen, the gas producers and thesteel makers; tomorrow the doctors;then the parents; and someday theWhole World.

The opposite of the logic of totalitarian collectivism is, of course,the logic of individualist freedom.The logic of collectivism computesthe individual welfare, if at all, interms of the collective welfare, thatis, in terms of ((aggregates" likegross national·welfare, income distributions, and distributive justice.The logic of individualist freedomdoes the opposite, that is, it computes the social welfare, if at all, interms of the individuals' welfares asdefined and experienced by the individuals.

The American Constitution wasbuilt upon the logic of individualistfreedom. The American governmentwas founded to promote the common

welfare, but to the eighteenthcentury liberal minds of our constitutionalists that meant the exactopposite of what it means to theaverage American today.

Because they assumed that welfare could only be defined individually, the American constitutionalists intended the governmentto promote the common welfare byremaining as small and.weak as itcould while serving the one and onlycollective form ofwelfare, that of thecommon defense against foreignpowers which wanted to impose Bigand Powerful Government onAmericans. Thus it is that they discovered that revolutionary American idea of individual freedom:minimizing the power of government will maximize the welfare ofall. Thus it is that when Tocquevillevisited America in the 1830s hefound a remarkable «absence" ofgovernment and an equally remarkable high level of individualwelfare-a land of freedom and ofpeace and plenty.

Unhappy Nation

The government-dominatedAmerica of 1980 is a deeply unhappynation, a nation torn by deep dissension as never before since the civilwar. Each American today is fighting his own desperate guerrilla warfare against the relentless growth ofgovernment power. Worst of all, themassive use of government power to


tax and control each of us ttfor thecommon welfare," has logicallyturned each of us into the enemy ofall the others.

Our collectivist Marxists tell usthat the free market capitalism ofTocqueville's era was evil because itturned each man against hisneighbor in economic competition.But the truth is the exact opposite.America under the free market wasa land of pervasive friendliness andcooperation, of neighborly feelingand public interest politics, of selfsacrificing parents and children andcharitable citizens. Now that we areall fighting desperately against eachother for· our shrinking piece of thewelfare-state pie, we have becomea surly and terribly conflictive society, a society dominated by selfishpressure-group politics, a society ofsniveling self-pity in which eachperson blames Uthe society" or, moreappropriately, ttthe Government" forall of his problems and demandsthat the Government solve his problems for him, a society in which

Sir Algernon Sidney

parents have little control over theirchildren and parents are deserted tothe cold treatment of the statefinanced nursing home, a society inwhich charity has been taxed away,a society in which love itself ispoisoned by the political conflict fora collectivist ttEquality."

Self-reliance was once the ironstring to which all American heartsbeat, but it was a self-reliance buttressed by all the strength of familylove and cooperation, by neighborlycooperation, and by a spirit of publicinterest. The hearts of Welfare-stateAmericans beat to the totalitariantunes of bureaucratic regulationsand state-dependency. A freeAmerica was a land in which theaverage man and woman believedthat their nation was like a shiningcity on a hill toward which allhuman beings could look longinglyand hopefully. Welfare-stateAmerica is a land without pride, anation in which the best have replaced a sense ofpublic interest witha sense of public shame. ®

IDEAS ON

LIBERTY

FOR as liberty solely consists in an independency upon the will ofanother, and by the name of slave we understand a man who can neitherdispose of his person or goods, but enjoys all at the will of his master;there is no such thing in nature as a slave if those men or nations are notslaves who have no other title to what they enjoy than the grace of thePrince, which he may revoke whensoever he pleaseth.

Clarence B. Carson

The Imitationof

England

IT is no accident that the Americaneconomy has followed a pattern setearlier by England, that the dollarhas declined in value and been devalued in foreign exchange as thepound has been, that the UnitedStates is suffering trade imbalancesas the English were doing well before now, that welfare programs areincreasingly burdensome in Americaas they have long been in England,that production is on the wane hereas in England. These parallels, Isay, are not accidental. The declineof the British pound was an effect ofthe same cause ~hat has successivelyweakened the dollar. In like fashion,many other developments in theUnited States have a similar causeto those in England.

Dr. Careon ha. written and taught exten.lvely,specializing In American Intellectual history. HI.recent aerie., World In the Grip of an Idea, I. nowavailable a. a book.

470

But the relationship betweenwhat has happened in England andwhat is happening in the UnitedStates is closer and more direct thanthe above may convey. It is not simply that like causes produce likeeffects in both England and theUnited States, though they do. It ismore than that. The United Stateshas followed in the path towardsocialism that was first trod by England. The United States has imitated England. We have borrowedand imitated tactics devised in England. We have followed in England'sfootsteps in concentrating and exercising political power. We have evenaped many of the legislative acts ofEngland. Small wonder, then, thatthe same consequence should befallus.

It is not my point, however, thatall the socialist influences on theUnited States came from England.

THE IMITATION OF ENGLAND 471

In the broadest sense, the imitationof England was the imitation ofmuch of Europe, as socialist influences from the continent were important as well as those from England. Nor is it my point that theAmerican bent to socialism was aforeign import entirely. Americanthinkers did not originate socialism,but they did much to acclimate it toAmerican circumstances. It israther that the particular variety ofsocialism that has had greatest. influence on the United States originated in England, that most developments occurred in England before they did· in the United States,and that the imitation of Englandwas the most pronounced feature ofthe American thrust to socialism.For these reasons, what has befallenEngland is most relevant to theAmerican· situation.

The Fabian Approach

Socialism has been introduced inthe United States piecemeal andgradually. This tactic was mosttrenchantly set forth by the EnglishFabians whom Americans imitated.The Fabian Society was organized inEngland in 1884 and, because itdrew into its ranks and orbit suchtalented writers as George BernardShaw, H. G. Wells, Sidney and Beatrice (Potter) Webb, and GrahamWallas, was not long in beginning tohave an .impact. By the 1890s,aperiodical was being published. in

the United States called The American Fabian, and Fabian ideas werebeing introduced politically by wayof the Populist Party.

The rise of Fabians signaled theemergence ofevolutionary socialismas a distinct idea, though it would beseveral years before Eduard· Bernstein spelled out the concept. Mostsocialists prior to this time had beendogmatists who advanced some particular panacea for curing theworld's ills. There were anarchists,syndicalists, revolutionaries, singletaxers, land redistributionists,communitarians, and so on.

Karl Marx caught much of this inhis theory of revolutionarysocialism, but for him ((the revolu-tion" became the panacea. By contrast, the Fabians had no one particular panacea. Unlike the anarchists, they believed in the use ofgovernment power. Unlike the Marxists, they believed in workingwithin the existing framework ofinstitutions. Unlike the syndicalists, they launched their appealto the society at large. They saw thetask as much broader than something that could be accomplished bya single tax or inflation or landredistribution, although anyone ofthese efforts, or all of them, mightfind place among their proposals.

The Fabians were gradualists.More, they were· eclectic. There wasno one particular way to socialism forthem; any act that brought govern-


ment control over anything was astep in that direction. They werestatists, who proposed to arrive atsocialism democratically.

How to Come to Power

The central problem of socialistsin the latter part of the nineteenthcentury, aside from their difficultyin coming to agreement with oneanother, was how to come to power.It was a large problem indeed.Everywhere, they were a smallminority of the population-tinymight be more accurate-eonsistingusually of dogmatic and quarrelsome intellectuals. Generally, theylived on the fringes of society, wereheld in low esteem, and were oftenharassed by the police. How couldthey gain respect? How could theygain influence? How could theycome to power?

The Fabians proposed to solve thisproblem by what they called((permeation." An historian of theFabians describes the tactic thisway: ((In its most general sense, itmeant that Fabians should join allorganizations where useful Socialistwork could be done, and influencethem.... Taking a broad interpretation of the meaning of Socialism andhaving an optimistic belief in thepowers of persuasion, the Fabiansthought that most organizationswould be willing to accept at least agrain or two of Socialism. It wasmainly a matter of addressing them

reasonably, with a strong emphasison facts, diplomatically, with an eyeto the amount of Socialism theywere prepared to receive, and in aconciliatory spirit."! George Bernard Shaw, a leading Fabianspokesman, described the tactic ofpenneation in more detail:

We urged our members to join theLiberal and Radical Associations of theirdistricts, or, if they preferred it, the Conservative Associations. We told them tobecome members of the nearest RadicalClub and Co-operative Store, and to getdelegated to the Metropolitan RadicalFederation and the Liberal and RadicalUnion if possible. On these bodies wemade speeches and moved resolutions,or, better still, got the Parliamentarycandidate for the constituency to movethem, and secured reports and encouraging little articles for him in the Star. Wepermeated the party organizations andpulled all the wires we could lay ourhands on with our utmost adroitness andenergy; and we succeeded so far that in1888 we gained the solid advantage of aProgressive majority, full of ideas thatwould never have come into their headshad not the Fabians put them there, onthe first London County Council.2

Bending Existing Organizationsto Socialist Purposes

To appreciate fully the tactic ofpermeation it needs to be viewed inthe broad context of socialism generally. Most socialists lookedaskance at existing organizations.Anarchists and revolutionists believed that they would have to be de-

1980 THE IMITATION OF ENGLAND 473

stroyed. Those of a more peacefulbent usually thought in terms ofestablishing their own communitiesand organizations. Land redistributionists have been inclined tothink in terms of breaking up largefarms and parceling them out tothose who would tend them.Socialists of a political bent favoredforming their own political parties,and the usual result was a proliferation of parties, each pushing its particular panacea and very particulardoctrines.

By contrast, the Fabians acceptedthe existing system of organizations.They accepted the government, thepolitical parties, the businesses, theeducational institutions, thechurches, the newspapers, and so on.That is not to say that they did notwant to make changes in them, forthat they did, but what they envisioned was subtle, and sometimesnot so subtle, alterations, not abolition, destruction, or replacement.They wanted to permeate them, influence them, and eventually control the course oftheir development.

The Fabian Society had only a fewmembers at its inception. Eventually, there would be severalthousand members, but it never became a mass organization. It wouldnot have been to their purpose ifthey could have had one. (Convincedand determined socialists constituteonly a small minority of the population in any land.) What they sought

may be best conceived as intellectualleverage. That is the underlyingmeaning of permeation.

Intellectual Leverage

Intellectual leverage does not require quantity; it needs quality instead. Organizations concentratedecision making power: in cabinets,boards, committees, and ultimatelyin individuals. All that is necessaryto alter their course is to influencethe decision makers. One man canplay a pivotal role on a board, committee, commission, or cabinet simply by adroitly advancing his ideas.The commitment of the LabourParty to socialism at the end ofWorld War I required only thepermeation of its leadership.

Intellectual leverage has abroader impact than may be suggested by influence within particular organizations. Ultimate intellectualleverage is achieved by the creation and domination of the intellectual climate. This, too, the Fabianseventually achieved in England.They made socialism respectable, atleast that variety they propounded.Indeed, for a time-particularly inthe 1940s-they made it about theonly respectable outlook. Their eclecticism made the task much easierthan it would otherwise have been.They could draw into their framework reformers, interventionists,welfarists, nationalizers, and whathave you. After all, an inflationist


was a socialist, too, even despitehimself, for Fabians were inflationists, and they were socialists.

Permeation was a most useful tactic in dominating the intellectualclimate. One does not have to own anewspaper in order to determinewhat books get good reviews. Forthat, one needs only to be the bookreview editor, and, sometimes, onlythe reviewer. Careers are made andunmade in such fashion, and an intellectual climate is shaped. Whenthat has, been accomplished, merepoliticians tend to be but reflexes ofthe prevailing ideas.

The American,Pattern

In a general way, it is clear thatAmericans used tactics similar to .those advanced by the English Fabians. Americans have certainlymoved gradually, and episodically,toward socialism. They did not, forexample, rush.out and take over therailroads in one fell swoop (exceptbriefly during World War 1). Instead, they passed mild regulationat the first, in the late nineteenthcentury. Then, over the years theytightened the regulation until theInterstate Commerce Commissionhad a virtual stranglehold on them.,Then, the government ,began to. encourage the consolidation ofcompeting lines. In the course of time, thefederal government has taken overproviding some of the rail servicesand some railroads. Control over the

money supply was not achieved allat once. It was done step by step andgradually over the better part of thecentury. It was not complete untilthe final steps were taken in makingit outright fiat money' in the late1960s and early 1970s.

It is equally clear that Americanswould use government; to move toward socialism, just as the Fabianshad proposed in England. Existingorganizations were neither abandoned, abolished, nor destroyed. ,In..stead, they have generally beenpenetrated by government powerand, where possible, instrumentedto the purposes of those who govern.Existing political institutions havebeen preserved, such' as those ofstate and local government, but theyhave been increasingly drawn intodependence upon the federal government and serve as instrumentsto do its will. The framework ofpopular government has ,·been preserved and extended, but thesignificance of elections has shifted moreand more toward ideological consid~

erations.

Political· Strategy

The tactic of permeation has beenmuch used by American intellectuals. Indeed, no new political partyemerged to gain' major following inthe United States in the 'twentiethcentury, .as did the Labour Party inEngland. Instead, intellectuals of areformist, welfarist, and, ulti-


mately, socialist bent penetratedand permeated the Democratic andRepublican Parties. In the 1920s,however, many of those of that Persuasion became Progressives andnever returned to the Republicanfold. Instead, from the 1930s onwardthe Democratic Party became themain instrument of the thrust toward socialism. In many ways, it became the American equivalent of theBritish Labour Party, relyingheavily on labor unions, their financial contributions and the votes oftheir members.

Intellectual leverage, perhaps thesingle most important of Fabiancontributions to evolutionarysocialism, became as important inAmerica as England. The Fabiansdid not have movies, radio, or television when they began to move togain intellectual leverage. At first,they relied on tracts, pamphlets,newspapers, magazines, and books.The later inventions made possible adegree of leverage difficult to imagine earlier. A few men located atpivotal positions in the three American networks can decide what getsshown, what interpretation is madeof it, who is allowed to speak, and inwhat way. Above all, it is the powerto determine what are issues worthconsidering that makes so much difference.

There were, of course, major differences between England and theUnited States. One difference that

impressed both British and Americans was that the United States hasa written constitution. RamsayMacDonald, British Fabian andeventual Prime Minister, put it thisway in 1898: "The great bar to progress is the written constitutions, Federal and State, which give ultimatepower to a law court."3

Constitutional Issues

The American Fabian, an American publication begun in 1895 inconscious imitation of the British,described the difficulty more fully:HEngland's Constitution readilyadmits of constant though gradualmodification. Our American Constitution does not readily admit ofsuch change. England can thusmove into Socialism almost imperceptibly. Our Constitution beinglargely individualistic must bechanged to admit of Socialism, andeach change necessitates a politicalcrisis. This means the raising ofgreat new issues...."4 Americanintellectuals did, of course, eventually devise ways to move towardsocialism with few written constitutional changes, but that was owingto American ingenuity mainly, notto British.

Another difference was thatAmericans generally have neverbought socialism when it was packaged that way. No party with theavowed intent of establishingsocialism has ever come close to get-


ting an electoral majority nationally. This difference, however, madeBritish Fabianism more importantto Americans with a socialistic bent,not less. The Fabians were avowedlyand explicitly socialists. MostAmerican intellectuals of theirstripe were not, after the earlytwentieth century. Yet to go anywhere requires that the destinationbe conceived somehow. By imitatingthe British, Americans could be assured, or at least believe, that theywere headed in the direction ofsocialism.

Common Influences inBritain and America

The influence of British socialismon American intellectuals has beencontinual over the years. Not onlydo Americans share a common language with the British but also acommon heritage and intellectualframework. Twice in the twentiethcentury the United States has goneto war allied with the British, and inthese wars their relations have beenparticularly close. The influencesometimes surfaces as when American intellectuals propose that theBritish system of government is incertain ways superior to our ownrequiring a new election, or a newgovernment, when the leadershipsuffers an adverse vote on a majormeasure in the House of Commons,for example, or having effectiveparty discipline.

Often, however, it was much moredirect than this might suggest. Hereis an example. Graham Wallas, oneof the first members of the EnglishFabian Society, came to Harvard tolecture in 1910. There he met andbecame close friends with WalterLippmann, a student there at thetime and active in socialist circles. Afew years later when Lippmannpublished Drift and Mastery, a subtle gradualist work, he dedicated itto Wallas. Wallas replied in kindwith his new work, The Great Society, a phrase that would crop upagain years later as President Lyndon Johnson's program for theUnited States. ((The British FabiansH. G. Wells and Graham WaHas,"says one historian, ((visited the Harvard campus and, as Englishmen,made economic heresy respectable.Lippmann was later convinced thateven William James had been converted to socialism by the dynamicWells."s Walter Lippmann became,of course, one of the most adept atmaintaining intellectual leverageby way of journalism.

The Impact of Keynes onEconomic Theory

Perhaps the best known exampleof British influence is that of JohnMaynard Keynes. It is not certainthat Keynes was a member of theFabian Society during the years ofhis greatest prestige, but he wasclosely associated with many Fa-


bians, and rendered signal service totheir cause. Keynes did not, as somemay suppose, invent the notion ofmanipulating the money supply toachieve social ends. There were inflationists around before he wasborn. Nor did he invent nationalplanning and government controlover the economy. He did provide aponderous gloss in justification ofthese activities with his GeneralTheory. Almost singlehandedly, hemade macro-economics respectable,ifnot comprehensible. He carved outa niche for intellectual leverage overthe economies of nations, includingthe United States.

The dependence of Americans onBritish socialism is suggested in thisdescription of his activities byRobert Hunter who was for years aleader in the Intercollegiate Societyof Socialists but who later renounced socialism:

When I was a resident at Hull Housein Chicago, at Toynbee Hall in London,and at the University settlement in NewYork, I was drawn by some bond ofsympathy into close association withlabor and socialist leaders of the threegreat cities. For many years at home andabroad, I passed from one group toanother in a world little known at thetime-a world almost exclusively occupied with social problems and theirsolutions. The groups in America weresmall and without influence, but inEurope the leaders were in Parliament,and lines were forming for the classconflicts which followed the World War.6

The significance of British influence on American intellectuals lies,of course, in the eventual influenceof these last on America. For that,we turn now to some particulars ofthe imitation of England.

It has been noted already thatthose advancing socialist measuresin the United States had constitutional problems. Although theywere not so forbidding, so did theBritish. The British had a separation of powers in their government,one which became the model formany other governments in thenineteenth century. They had anhereditary monarch who had longbeen head of state and chief executive. They had an hereditary Houseof Lords which served, in effect, notonly as a legislative body but as asupreme court which was the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution.The House of Commons was, ofcourse, the seat of popular government in the realm.

Concentration of Power

In the early twentieth century,virtually all governmental powerwas concentrated in the House ofCommons. Part of the concentrationhad come about gradually and byattrition. The monarch had been losing power for the better part of acentury. George III (1760-1820) wasthe last monarch to assert himselfover the government. The two kingswho followed were weak and irreso-


lute men who lacked the will anddetermination to be anything muchbut figureheads. Queen Victoria(1837-1901) was respected and beloved, but not because of any actualcontrol she exerted over the government. As one historian notes, between U1874 and 1914 while theperson of the monarch may evenhave gained importance as a figurehead, it steadily lost power as afactor in government."7

How low monarchy had sunk waswell illustrated in 1910. The Liberals in the House, with a large majority behind them, were determinedto break the power of the Lords.They were afraid, however, that theLords might reject the legislation bywhich it would have to be accomplished. H. H. Asquith, the PrimeMinister, went to King George V toask him that if it became necessarywould he appoint enough newPeers-upack the House of Lords"to get the legislation through. TheKing assented, though, as it turnedout, it was unnecessary.8

The House of Lords was shorn ofits effective veto powers over legislation in 1911. In the case of moneybills, if they were not passed withoutamendment by the Lords within twomonths of being sent to them theybecame law ·without the assent ofthe Peers of the realm. Other typesof legislation could be delayed muchlonger, but if Commons persistedthey could become law without the

approval of the Lords. There was nolonger any effective constitutionalrestraint on the House of Commons.There should be no doubt, either,that this constitutional change wasmade to facilitate a socialistic bentin the legislation from the House ofCommons. The Lords had refused toaccept a budget bill which steeplytaxed inheritances, income, andland. The concentration of powerwas rounded out in World War Iwhen great powers of decision werevested in the prime minister andthat portion of his cabinet whichdealt with the conduct of the war.

Reserving the Safeguards

There was not only a separation ofpowers in the United States but alsoa dispersion of powers between thefederal and state governments. Thewritten constitutions which socialists saw as an obstacle to their programs were, then, augmented byseparations exceedingly difficult toovercome. The United States doesnot have party government in theformal sense; hence, intellectualleverage is difficult to achieve.

The first major step was achievedin reducing the dispersal of powersby the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913. This provided for thedirect election of Senators by thevoters rather than by the state legislatures. This shifted the Senateaway from representation of thestates toward nationalization. No


longer could Senators be held to account by state governments for themanner in which they defended thepowers of the states.

The second major change was inthe direction of developing presidential government. This may be seenmost directly in the development ofprograms by presidential candidates, programs with names and directions. This development surfacedinto plain view for the first time inthe election of 1912. TheodoreRoosevelt presented his program asthe New Nationalism, and WoodrowWilson as the New Freedom.Franklin D. Roosevelt carried itconsiderably farther with his NewDeal, and his successors advancedsuch programs as the Fair Deal,New Frontier,and Great Society.

The second Roosevelt moved mostswiftly, deftly, and directly towardpresidential government. In theearly days of the New Deal, legislation was drawn up in the executivebranch and swiftly passed by theCongress. Much of this legislationwas drawn by what was called auBrain Trust," which gave greatleverage to intellectuals over thegovernment. Roosevelt attempted toconcentrate power even more bycampaigning in primaries againstmembers of his own party who hadaroused his disapproval and in hisill-fated ttcourt packing" proposal.This last was reminiscent of the notion of packing the House of Lords.

Downgrading the StatesPresidential government did not

in itself reduce the independence ofthe states. That has been accomplished mainly in two otherways. The most subtle assault on theindependence of the states has beenby the grant-in-aid. The EnglishFabians saw the possibilities of thegrant-in-aid for nationalizing powerin England from their early years.They called it (tthe middle way," themiddle way, that is, between centralization and local autonomy.((The middle way has," says one ofthe Tracts, (tfor half a century, beenfound through that most advantageous of expedients, the grant in aid.We see this in its best form in thepolice grant.... A grant in aid of thecost of the local police was offered tothe justices and town councilors-atfirst one quarter, and now one half,of their actual expenditure on thisservice, however large this maybe."9 That increasing grants couldbe accompanied by increasing central control they did not point out,but that has certainly been the casein the United States.

Land grant colleges were first authorized in the nineteenth century,but the grant-in-aid really gotunderway on any scale in the UnitedStates with Federal aid in buildinghighways. In the 1930s it wasemployed in such programs as welfare and unemployment compensation. Since the 19608 it has assumed


gargantuan proportions as virtuallyevery conceivable program, fromeducation to police work, is partiallysubsidized from Washington. President Nixon pushed the idea of thefederal government sharing its taxreceipts with local governments.The idea, as he presented it, wasthat the federal system of government would be preserved by the program. What has happened, ofcourse, is that state and local government have become increasinglydependent upon these monies, andthat the national bureaucracy usesthe threat of withholding grants toforce these governments to complywith their rules.

Changes by Court Interpretation

The other major means for subordinating the states has been bycourt interpretation. Since court interpretation has also been used toremove most of the substantive constitutional obstacles to socialism,the two may be discussed jointly. Bythe early twentieth century, American reformers with a socialist benthad figured out what had to be doneand how it could be done gradually.Herbert Croly described the constitutional problems this way: uTheregulation of commerce, the controlof corporations, and the still moreradical questions connected with thedistribution of wealth and the prevention ofpoverty-questions ofthiskind should be left exclusively to the

central government; or in case theyare to any extent allowed to remainunder the jurisdiction of the states,they should exercise such jurisdiction as the agents of the centralgovernment."lO But much ofwhat hehad in mind could be accomplishedwithout amendment, he thought;~~and in most respects it should beleft to the ordinary process ofgradual amendment by construction.... "11 Walter Weyl, Croly'scolleague later at The New Republic, declared that the Supreme Courtcould ~~by a few progressive judicialdecisions ... democratize the Constitution."12

Whether the Supreme Court hasudemocratized" the Constitution ornot, it has certainly construed it soas to subordinate the states, concentrate power in the general government, and remove the obstacles tosocialist type legislation. By 1960the interstate commerce clause hadbeen construed to be so inclusive inits grant of power that the stateshad only a remnant of power overcommercial activity.

Court Inltlated Reforms

The courts have long since takento initiating changes and reforms,and it is widely accepted today thatthe Supreme Court is some sort ofsuper legislative body, empoweredto alter the Constitution to contemporary requirements. In this role,the courts have been aided and abet-


ted by the media-the seats of intellectual leverage-by having many

.oftheir most radical decisions hailedas the ((law of the land."

Whether or not the United StatesConstitution has been ((democratized," it has certainly beenHBritishized." The early Fabianswere right in their assertions aboutthe basic difference between theBritish and American constitutions.While there are documents whichconstitute a portion of the BritishConstitution, it is not a written instrument. Nor does it require extraordinary procedures to alter it.Changes in custom and tradition,new precedents, court decisions, andacts of Parliament may and sometimes do alter the constitution. Itconsists of a complex of inheritedinstitutions, of established procedures, of legal developments, and oflegislative acts. It lends itself readily to gradual and incrementalchanges.

The United States Constitution isnot like that. It is a written document; the procedures for amendingit are specified, and amendmentsare extraordinary. Increasinglysince the late 1930s, however, theSupreme Court has treated the Constitution as if it were a traditiononly to be altered with changingconditions. In England, they revoked the veto power of the House ofLords to open the way for socialism.In the United States, the negative

power of the courts was transformedinto a positive power to alter andchange. When the American colonists broke from England andfounded their own political systemthey continued to use the commonlaw inherited from England. Underthe impetus to socialism the Constitution is now treated as if it werea part of the common law. That ishow the United States Constitutionhas been UBritishized."

The Subtle Differences

Americans imitated the Britishgradualist approach to socialism.Like the British before them, theyaccepted and worked within existingorganizations. They permeatedthem. Like the British, Americanintellectuals moved to vest power ingovernment, to concentrate it, andto gain intellectual leverage over it.Both claimed to be democratic. Thestates were turned increasingly intoinstruments of the federal government, and the Constitution treatedin the British manner as if it wereflexible and alterable at will, notfixed by the language in which it iswritten.

The significance of the Americanimitation ofEngland comes out mostdirectly in the following ways. First,it helps to establish the fact that weare bent toward socialism. That hasnot been easy to do, because American programs have usually been advanced as measures to cure particu-


lar ills. By contrast, the British haveoften been explicit about their aimto achieve socialism. In so far as weare imitating the English, we aremoving toward socialism, whetherwe will or not. Second, both in England and America the removal ofmany of the restraints on government power have been preludes toassaults on property and reductionsof the control which the inhabitantshave over their own affairs. Third,the British have gone farther downthe path toward socialism, and theydid so earlier. Hence, the consequences of socialism are more visible there.

The ReSUlting Paralysis

First from the British, then fromthe American experience, we canconclude that the consequences ofsocialism are paralysis. It begins aspartial paralysis, because ofgradualist methods, but over theyears it tends to extend into moreand more areas. To the extent thatthe hope of gain motivates productive activity, the assault on profitmaking is an assault on productivity. The graduated income tax takesaway much of the surplus for futureinvestment. Inflation reduces thegain and fosters hoarding: of land,antiques, untaxed securities, and soforth. Redistribution of the wealthencourages consumption and discourages, production. Economicplanning by government makes it

increasingly difficult for individualsto make plans. It shifts the power toact from the individual to the government, thus partially paralyzing~elaying, limiting, preventingeconomic action.

The paralysis induced bygradualist socialism evinces itself asnational decline, as social disintegration, and as nihilism at the individual level. Social disintegrationoccurs as the breakup of families,the loss of hold of institutions, decreasing vitality in voluntary organizations, and the breakdown ofthe power of social prescription. Individual nihilism shows itself aslawlessness, loss of self-respect, lossof respect for others, contempt forproperty, and the frantic pursuit ofthrills. That much of this has beenfostered and facilitated in the sameintellectual atmosphere that hasadvanced socialism is demonstrable.

It is written that on a certain daythere came to the attention of Jesusa man who had suffered an infirmityfor 38 years. The man was lying on abed beside a pool which, it wasclaimed, was a place where onemight be cured if he could enter thewaters immediately after they hadbeen disturbed by an angel. Jesusasked the man if he would like to bemade whole. Undoubtedly he would,but, he pointed out, he had no one tohelp him and when the time.camesomeone else always got in ahead ofhim. Jesus said to him, ~~Rise, take


up thy bed, and walk." And he did.(John 5:5-9)

Whatever else may have ailed theman, he was almost certainly suffering from what we would call a dependency syndrome. He was lyingbeside the pool waiting for a miracleto happen. All he needed was someone to help him get into the watersat the right time. He must havebeen dependent on others for a longtime to provide him with his necessities. Ifhe was not at least partiallyparalyzed he .might as well havebeen.

The people of the United Statesare suffering from a dependencysyndrome, and we have been partially paralyzed for at least 38 years,if not longer. We have dependedupon European ideas for intellectualsustenance. We have imitated England in adopting gradualistsocialism. We have become dependent upon government for all sortsof aid and benefits. It is a paralyzingdependency. Many are lying by apool, figuratively if not literally, expecting to be rescued by some miracle. We would get in the water, too,if we just had others to help us.

Jesus took the cold turkey approach to the dependency syndrome.ttRise, take up thy bed, and walk."Stop lying around the pool expectinga miracle. Stop imitating all thoseothers lying flat on their backs.

Stand on your own two feet. Takeresponsibility for yourself and yourown. Manage your own affairs.Would it be that easy? No, but itwould be at least that hard. Thosewho think it would be easy are stillexpecting miracles. Will it cure theills of the world? Probably not, thecure is individual not collective.Collectivism is the ill. The beliefthat one is somehow responsible forcuring the ills of the world is thedisease. He who rises, takes up hisown bed and walks is no longer apart of the problem but a part of thesolution. ,

-FOOTNOTES-

lA. M. McBriar, Fabian Socialism and English Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), pp. 95-96.

2Fabian TrO£t #41.3Quoted in Rose L. Martin, Fabian Freeway

(Chicago: Heritage Foundation, 1966), p.136."'Ibid.5Charles Forcey, The Crossroads of

Liberalism (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1961), pp. 95-96.

6Martin, Ope cit., p. 176.7R. C. K. Ensor, England: 1870-1914 (Ox

ford: Oxford University Press, 1936), p. 31.8George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of

Liberal England (New York: Capricorn Books,1961), p. 40.

9Fabian TrO£t #108.lOHerbert Croly, The Promise of American

Life (New York: Capricorn Books, 1964, originally published, 1909), p. 350.

llIbid., p. 351.12Walter E. Weyl, The New DemocrO£Y (New

York: Macmillan, 1912), p. 317.

P. Dean Russell

IdealismandStudents

r$

484

COLLEGE STUDENTS tend to be highlyidealistic. Most of them truly wantto help their fellow men and women.They want to·do something worthwhile with their lives. That's good,ofcourse; for ifwe aren't idealistic inour late 'teens and early 20s, there'snot much hope for us.

A part of my job as a teacher is todiscuss ~~careers" with these youngmen and women. Every year,perhaps a half-dozen will ask me tosuggest a career that will permitthem to earn a good living while also~~making a contribution" to our nation and people in general. In mostcases, I suspect they're thinking interms of a career in governmentwhere they'll work hard to pass goodlaws to help the people.

While I never specifically advisethem against a career in government, I do try to get them to alsoconsider another possibility. Mysuggestion goes something like this:If you truly want to help yourfellowman, perhaps you should consider going into business. Then youcan personally produce somethingthat people want and are willing topay for. Beyond any doubt, thatwould be a real and needed service.

For example, there are literallymillions ofyoung people-especiallyyoung couples-who would like tobuy a house but can't. Prices and

Dr. Russell Is Professor of Management, SChool ofBusiness Administration, The University of Wisconsin at La Crosse.

IDEALISM AND STUDENTS 485

interest rates are beyond theirmeans. There's no law that forbidsyou and me from helping them,however, by building homes atprices and financial terms they canafford. That would be of tremendoushelp to them.

You could also decide to build better refrigerators and sell them atprices we consumers can pay. That'show businessmen (and women) earntheir profits in a private-ownershipeconomy, Le., not by compulsorylaws but by peacefully satisfying thewants of willing buyers.

That's what the market economyand freedom of choice are all about.For example, our enormous production of food-much of which is usedto feed Russians and Chinese-isproduced by businessmen-farmerswho voluntarily decide to do it.Businessmen also produce ourclothes and movies, build ourchurches and tractors, and developbetter vaccines to keep us healthier.

True enough, they want to improve their own lot when they selltheir products, i.e., they want toearn profits. If they don't, obviouslythey'll soon go broke and disappear.There's a most unfortunate side effect when that happens: Millions ofus Americans are likely to disappearright along with them. For withoutindependent businessmen andwomen to manage our productionand distribution facilities in aneconomy of choice, we would start

the descent back toward the brutelike societies of compulsion and conquest we can observe all around us.

For clear evidence of this inevitable result, look next door at themaximum-security prison calledCuba where exceedingly harsh measures are imposed on people to prevent them from escaping to a land of .choice. Look also at the Russian invaders in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, and their all-out effortsto destroy human dignity along withhuman beings. That's no service toanyone, including even the Russianconquerors and Cuban prisonwardens. For the leaders of thosenations themselves are also therebyimprisoned and dehumanized. Theyjust live in better cells.

So if you'd like more people tohave more food, medical care, andother products and services theywant, do consider a career in business where everyone is free to produce or not produce, and to buy ornot buy. Then you can personallyhelp produce and distribute whatever it is that people most want asshown by their willingness to buy it.That includes smaller cars, biggerTV sets, and more vacations abroad.

And if you do a good job of producing them, you are likely to earnprofits-hopefully, high profits. Youcan then use those profits as youthink best-including giving themto anyone you choose, and for anyreason that appeals to you. @

Henry Hazlitt

•The Sphere of DGovernment

Nineteenth Century Theories:2. Herbert Spencer

HERBERT SPENCER (1820-1903) wasthe nineteenth century's philosopher of evolution. He aspired touniversal knowledge. What hecalled his Synthetic Philosophy ranto ten volumes. They included FirstPrinciples (1862), followed by volumes on The Principles of Biology,The Principles of Psychology, ThePrinciples of Sociology, and ThePrinciples of Ethics. Spencer alsowrote at least eight other books.

But his earliest published workwas a pamphlet, The Proper Sphereof Government, which he wrote atthe age of22, and his first importantbook was Social Statics, published in1851. These publications advocated

Henry Hazlltt, noted econom.... author, editor, reviewer and columnl", he,. continue. a .erle. ofnineteenth century theorl.. on the aphe,. of govemment. The view. of John Stuart Mill we,. diecu.aed In the January 1980 ".ue of The Freeman.

486

what would today be called, and wasin fact called at the time, Han extreme form of laissez faire."

The limitation of state power remained one of Spencer's dominantinterests till the end of his life. In alater edition of Social Statics heomitted a chapter entitled: ((TheRight to Ignore the State," but essentially his ideas on the subject ofstate power changed very little as hegrew older. In 1884 he published asmall volume entitled The Man Versus the State. In 1891 appeared PartIV of The Principles ofEthics: ((TheEthics of Social Life: Justice," andhe declared this to represent his definitive views on the subject. Let ussummarize and analyze them.

After some prior discussion,Spencer arrives at what he calls Haformula of justice: ... Every man isfree to do that which he wills, pro-

SPHERE OF GOVERNMENT: HERBERT SPENCER 487

vided he infringes not the equalfreedom of any other man." This isalmost exactly the maxim that hehad laid down in his Social Staticsforty years earlier, but I regret thatit seems to me vague and unsatisfactory.

In The Principles of EthicsSpencer was aware of criticisms thatmust in the meantime have beenmade of it by others, for he immediately proceeds to deal with oneof them:

ttA possible misapprehensionmust be guarded against. There areacts ofaggression which the formulais presumably intended to exclude,which apparently it does notexclude. It maybe said that if Astrikes B, then, so long as B is notdebarred from striking A in return,no greater freedom is claimed by theone than by the other; or it may besaid that if A has trespassed on B'sproperty, the requirement of theformula has not been broken so longas B can trespass on A's property.Such interpretations, however, mistake the essential meaning.. of theformula.... It does not countenancea superfluous interference withanother's life, committed on theground that an equal interferencemay balance it...."1

Now this will hardly do. If a formula does not in fact countenanceactions that it does countenance onits face, then it has i not been satisfactorily formulated. It is not a satis-

factory rule or guide to policy, and itmust be revised or rejected. It mustclearly exclude aggression againstor harm to others.

But it must also carefully delimitthe nature of the ((aggression" or((harm." If A and B are applying forthe same job or courting the samegirl, and A is the successful competitor, the prospects of B may be correspondingly damaged. But as longas A ((played fair," and did not resortto violence or fraud, no one wouldconsider that B had any just causefor complaint. There are many simi- ~

lar cases, but there are also borderline cases. If A and B have neighboring properties and A puts up an uglyhouse that .B considers an eyesorethreatening his property value, hasB just cause for suit? If A puts up afire hazard or a chemical factorythat pollutes B's air or water, nearlyeveryone would consider B's casemuch stronger. It is problems likethese that legislators and courtshave to try to solve by passing scoresof laws and. making thousands ofdecisions in individual cases.

More a Formula for Libertythan for Justice

Spencer's formula strikes memore as an attempted definition ofliberty than as a· maxim of justice.And ifit is so, then lmuch prefer theformula. of John Locke in 1690:((Freedom of men under governmentis to have a standing rule to live by,


common to every one of that society,and made by the legislative powererected in it; a liberty to follow myown will in all things, where therule prescribes not: and not to besubject to the inconstant, uncertain,unknown, arbitrary will of anotherman."2

Montesquieu stated essentiallythe same formula more briefly in1748: ~~Liberty is the right to dowhat the laws allow. If a citizen hada right to do what they forbid itwould no longer be liberty, foreveryone else would have the sameright."3

So all practicable liberty is libertyunder law. But the shortcoming ofboth Locke's and Montesquieu'sformulas is that they fail to stateexplicitly that the restraints thatthe laws impose must be just, defi-nite' and minimal. But even a formula that embodied these specifications would again fall short unless itspelled out what these just and minimal restraints would be. This is thedilemma that confronts all efforts toframe a concise definition of eitherjustice or liberty.

The nearest to a good, short specification that I can at present remember is Thomas Jefferson's callfor ua wise and frugal government,which shall restrain men from. injuring one another, which shall leavethem otherwise free to regulatetheir own pursuits of industry andimprovement, and shall not take

from the mouth of labor the bread ithas earned."4

But I have perhaps allowed myselfto be carried too far astray on thispoint. Spencer's case for the minimal state does not rest solely or evenmainly on his own uformula for justice." Though he does not embracethe doctrine of Natural Law, he doesbelieve that man has certain inherent rights which we recognize by ~~a

priori intuition" or ~~a priori cognition." He proceeds to write a seriesof ten chapters on The Right toPhysical Integrity, The Rights toFree Motion and Locomotion, to theUses of Natural Media, The Right ofProperty, of Incorporeal Property, ofGift and Bequest, of Free Exchangeand Free Contract, to Free Industry,of Free Belief and Worship, and ofFree Speech and Publication. Nogovernment, he argues, has anylegitimate power to violate orabridge these rights.

A Modern Ring

At the end of Part IV Spencercomes to seven chapters (23 to 29) onthe nature, constitution, and dutiesof the state, and on the limits ofstate duties. When he discusses theconstitution of the state, he mighthave been writing about one of thechiefproblems that disturb us today:

Ulfit is true that a generation agolandowners and capitalists so adjusted public arrangements as toease themselves and to press unduly

1980 SPHERE OF GOVERNMENT: HERBERT SPENCER 489

upon others, it is no less true thatnow artisans and laborers, throughrepresentatives who are obliged todo their bidding, are fast remoldingour social system in ways whichachieve their own gain throughothers' loss. Year after year morepublic agencies are established togive what seem gratis benefits, atthe expense of those who pay taxes,local and general, and the mass ofthe people, receiving the benefitsand relieved from the cost of maintaining the public agencies, advocate the multiplication of them.

UIt is not true, then, that the possession of political power by all ensures justice to all. Contrariwise,experience makes obvious thatwhich should have been obviouswithout experience, that with a universal distribution of votes thelarger class will inevitably profit atthe expense of the smaller class.Those higher earnings which moreefficient actions bring to thesuperior, will not be all allowed toremain with them, but part will bedrafted off in some indirect way toeke out the lower earnings of theless diligent or the less capable; andin so far as this is done, the law ofequal freedom must be. broken."s

He sums up:ttOne conclusion, however, is

clear. State burdens, however proportioned among citizens, should beborne by all. Every one who receivesthe benefits which government

gives should pay some share of thecosts of government and should directly and not indirectly pay it....

ttHad each citizen to pay in a visible and tangible form his proportionof taxes, the sum would be so largethat all would insist on economy inthe performance of necessary functions and would resist the assumption of unnecessary functions,whereas at present, offered as eachcitizen is certain benefits for whichhe is unconscious of paying, he istempted to approve of extravagance;and is prompted to take the course,unknowingly if not knowingly dishonest, of obtaining benefits atother men's expense.

ttDuring the days when extensionsof the franchise were in agitation, amaxim perpetually repeated wastTaxation without representation isrobbery.' Experience has since madeit clear that, on the other hand,representation without taxation entails robbery." (pp. 219-20)

A Duty to Protect

In his chapter on ttThe Duties ofthe State," Spencer concludes thatthere is in effect just one: to protectthe citizenry against external andinternal aggression-against foreign enemies and against its lawbreakers. And in the following chapter on ttThe Limits of State Duties,"he asserts:

uThe question of limits becomesthe question whether, beyond main-


taining justice, the state can do anything else without transgressingjustice. On consideration we shallfind that it cannot. . ..

cCIf justice asserts the liberty ofeach limited only by the like liberties of all, then the imposing of anyfurther limit is unjust; no matterwhether the power imposing it beone man or a million ormen.... Wedo not commonly see, in a tax adiminution of freedom;' and yet itclearly is one. The money taken represents so much labor gone through,and the product of that labor beingtaken away.... cThus much of yourwork shall be devoted, not to yourown purposes, but to our purposes,'say the authorities to the citizens;and to whatever extent this is carried, to that extent .. the citizens become slaves of the government."(pp. 241-43)

Examples Galore

Though Spencer insisted constantly on the priority and necessityof deductive reasoning,few politicalwriters have been so industriousand specific in citing and piling upconcrete examples of the bungling,contradictions, and abuses of powerin carrying out the multitudinousfunctions that governments havetaken on. Long before he got to ThePrinciples ofEthics, he had detailedscores of these not only in SocialStatics, but in such essays asuOver-Legislation," CCState Tamper-

ings with Money and Banks," cCTheCollective Wisdom," and manyothers.

So in the Principles he continuedto cite case after specific case. Ofdrafting laws, for example:

cCThe judges themselves exclaimagainst the bungling legislationthey have to interpret: .one judgesaying. of a clause that he cdid notbelieve its meaning was comprehended .' either by the draftsmanwho drew it' or Ctheparliament thatadopted it,' and another declaringthat Cit was impossible for humanskill to· find, words more calculatedto puzzle everybody.' As a naturalconsequence we have every day appeals and again appeals-decisionsbeing reversed and re-reversed."(pp. 252-253) One would thinkSpencer was writing of conditions inAmerica today, rather than those ofEngland in 1890.

Of the coinage: CCln this we havefrequent changes where changes areundesirable. We have mixed systems: decimal, duodecimal, andnondescript. Until recently we hadtwo scarcely. distinguishable piecesfor threepence and fourpence" etc.(p.253)

Socialistic Legislation,

In a discussion on usocialisticlegislation," Spencer excoriates thethen Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, for sneering at basic principlesand saying: uWe ought first, to dis-

1980 SPHERE OF GOVERNMENT: HERBERT SPENCER 491

cuss every subject on its ownmerits." This is the method, comments Spencer, ~~which has been followed by those legislators who,throughout past thousands of years,have increased human miseries inmultitudinous ways and immeasurable degrees by mischievous laws.Regard for ~the merits of the case'guided Diocletian when he fixed theprices of articles and wages of workers' and similarly guided rulers ofall European nations who, centuryafter century, in innumerable cases,have decided how much commodityshall be given for so much money,and in our own country guided thosewho, after the Black Death, framedthe Statute of Labourers [to holddown wages], and presently causedthe peasant revolt. The countlessacts which, here and abroad, prescribed qualities and modes of manufacture, and appointed searchers tosee that things were made as directed, were similarly prompted byconsiderations of ~the merits of thecase': evils existed which it was obviously needful to prevent. . . .

~~Each one of those multitudinousregulations enforced by swarms ofofficials, which in France nearlystrangled industry, and was a partcause of the French revolution,seemed to those who established it, aregulation which ~the merits of thecase' called for; and no less did thereseem to be called for the numberless sumptuary laws which, genera-

tion after generation, kings andtheir ministers tried to enforce."(pp. 260-61)

The Remarkable Contrast

After citing many more suchexamples, Spencer sums up the contrast between the amazing accomplishments of free and spontaneous social cooperation and theimmense harm wrought by multitudinous government interventions:

~~The average legislator, equallywith the average citizen, has nofaith whatever in the beneficentworking of social forces, notwithstanding the almost infinite illustrations of this beneficent working.He persists in thinking of a societyas a manufacture and not as agrowth: blind to the fact that thevast and complex organization bywhich its life is carried on, has resulted from the spontaneous cooperations of men pursuing their privateends. Though, when he asks how thesurface of the earth has been clearedand made fertile, how towns havegrown up, how manufactures of allkinds have arisen, how the arts havebeen developed, how knowledge hasbeen accumulated, how literaturehas been produced, he is forced torecognize the fact that none of theseare ofgovernmental origin, but havemany of them suffered from governmental obstruction; yet, ignoringall this, he assumes that if a good is

492 THE FREEMAN

to be achieved or an evil prevented,Parliament must be invoked. He hasunlimited faith in the agency whichhas achieved multitudinous failures, and has no faith in the agencywhich has achieved multitudinoussuccesses." (pp. 266-67)

In expounding these views,Spencer, so far as the bulk of publicopinion was concerned, was an isolated figure. Similar ideas werebeing voiced by a handful of others,notably Auberon Herbert (18381906), but the vigorous opposition ofThomas H. Huxley (1825-1895)probably came much nearer to ex-

A Sobering Thought

pressing the political philosophy ofthe great mass of the British publicin the 1880s and 1890s, to the extentthat they bothered to formulate anyphilosophy. Huxley's views will beconsidered in a future issue of TheFreeman. ,

-FOOTNOTES-

lPrinciples of Ethics, Vol. II (Indianapolis:Liberty Classics), Ch. 6, p. 62.

2Two Treatises of Civil Government (Everyman's: E. P. Dutton), Second Treatise, sec. 21,p.127.

3The Spirit of the Laws, XI.4First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1801).sPrinciples ofEthics, II, pp. 212-13.

IDEAS ON

UBERTY

... the cautious thinker may reason:-~lfin these personal affairs, where allthe conditions of the case were known to me, I have so often miscalculated, how much oftener shall I miscalculate in political affairs, wherethe conditions are too numerous, too widespread, too complex, too obscureto be understood. Here, doubtless, is a social evil and there a desideratum; and were I sure of doing no mischief I would forthwith try tocure the one and achieve the other. But when I remember how many ofmy private schemes have miscarried; how speculations have failed,agents proved dishonest, marriage been a disappointment; how I did butpauperize the relative I sought to help; how my carefully-governed sonhas turned out worse than most children; how the thing I desperatelystrove against as a misfortune did me immense good; how while theobjects I ardently pursued brought me little happiness when gained,most of my pleasures have come from unexpected sources; when I recallthese and hosts of like facts, I am struck with the incompetence of myintellect to prescribe for society. And as the evil is one under whichsociety has not only lived but grown, while the desideratum is one itmay spontaneously obtain, as it has most others, in some unforeseenway, I question the propriety of meddling."

HERBERT SPENCER, The Man versus the State

Juliana Geran Pilon

Facingthe

Moral Attackon

CapitalismIs it not paradoxical that afteremerging like the phoenix from theashes of the Gulag Archipelago Alexander Solzhenitsyn should speakout against the land of milk andhoney? Is it not ironic that afterhaving known starvation and torture he should attack theenviable-and surely enviedcomforts of the West? And yet, onthe occasion of the Harvard University commencement on June 8, 1978,the man who could well be called themost significant moral leader of ourcentury, whose challenge to the conscience of mankind may prove tohave been the ultimate test for oursclerotic spiritual fiber, accused usof moral myopia, of pretending notDr. Pilon has taught and wrlUen extensively,In the fields of social and political philosophY.She Is now Visiting SCholar and Earhart Fellow atthe Hoover Institution on War, Revolution andPeace, Stanford University, Stanford, California.

A longer version of this article was prepared fora symposium on capitalism and freedom sponsoredby the Free Enterprise Fund, University of IIIlnol..Chicago Circle Business SChool.

to live in UA World Split Apart"the apt title of his prophetic message.

The world is split indeed, by divergent ideologies no less than byeconomic disparities. Those disparities, of course, are no secret.Indeed, were economics alone atstake in the dialogue it would seemthat the Marxist-assuming he istruly a materialist-would opt forcapitalism: the experience of nearlytwo centuries indicates that prosperity is attained best when trade isnot hampered by regulatory legislation.

Though few men are less utilitarian in outlook than Solzhenitsyn,he is no exception in recognizing thematerial success of the capitalistsystem. He thus readily concedesthat ((it is almost universally recognized that the West shows all theworld a way to successful economicdevelopment," inflation notwithstanding. He notes immediately,

493


however, that in spite (or maybebecause) of this, u many people livingin the West are dissatisfied withtheir own society. They despiseit or accuse it of not being upto the level of maturity attained bymankind. A number of such criticsturn to socialism, which is a falseand dangerous current."l

The problem, evidently, goes beyond economics. It would seem thatwe have here not so much an absence of information concerning thesuccess of laissez faire in producingwealth-indeed, wealth for thegreatest number-as a deep misunderstanding concerning the ethicalfoundations of capitalism. Thesocialist challenge, I submit, is ultimately a matter of morality.

Capitalism Under Attack:The Socialist Challenge

Solzhenitsyn himself lists many ofthe reasons why Westerners are dissatisfied with their own society: aweak social structure with a correspondingly alarming level of crime,ubiquitous mediocrity, worries andtensions that naturally accompanycompetition, especially materialcompetition, a highly conformistmedia, the cheap stupor that is television, and in general a pervadingsense of ((hastiness and superficiality" polluting our aesthetic space.Not many a contemporary liberalwould disagree. It is neverthelessmysterious why the preferred alter-

native is almost invariably found insocialism. Whence its charm? Whichof its attributes seduces the liberalcritic? How do its cosmetics manageto hide the leprous wart?

In his speech, Solzhenitsyn makesno attempt to account for this disturbing state of affairs. He cites abook by Igor Shafarevich entitledSocialism (published recently inFrance and due to appear shortly inthis country) as ((a profound analysisshowing that socialism of any typeand shade leads to total destructionof the human spirit and to a levelingof mankind to death."2 But howcould-how does-such a systemwin the hearts and minds of intelligent people throughout the capitalist world? Solzhenitsyn tells us thatin the East communism-which ofcourse is but a shade of socialismhas suffered a complete ideologicaldefeat (meaning, evidently, a defacto defeat, though tragically not dejure). Why, then, do we flirt with itin the West?

Undoubtedly Shafarevich's bookhas some of the best answers everoffered to that question. In an essaywhich summarizes the argument ofhis book, published in a 1974 anthology entitled From Under theRubble, Shafarevich traces theideology of socialism to the beginning of civilization, to Mesopotamiain the twenty-second and twentyfirst centuries B.C., which Shafarevich takes to be the first known

1980 FACING THE .MORAL ATTACK ON CAPITALISM 495

society to embody the basic premises of socialism. These are: theabolition of private property, the destruction of religion, the destructionof the family. Explicitly, therefore,socialism is not only an economicconcept but U an incomparably widersystem of views, embracing almostevery aspect of human existence."3This observation provides a key tounderstanding the Western malaise.For it is clear that the same is trueof ttcapitalism"-it too has come torefer to more, much more than thedescription of an· economic system.

At least one authority on popularusage, the American College Dictionary, lists as a second meaning ofcapitalism H2. the concentration ofcapital in the hands of a few, or theresulting power or influence," to beread in conjunction with u3. a system favoring such concentration ofwealth" (emphasis added). Capitalism is thus wedded to inequality.And if there be one supreme secularevil that truly irks the anticapitalist temperament it is Hinequality," sometimes also called ttso_cial injustice" to further load theterm with self-righteous indignation.

"Social Justice":A Meaningless Concept

For those who abhor inequality,the question is simply what meanswill most effectively eliminate it.There will be some, of course, who

point out that in fact capitalism hasdone more than any other system tofurther that end. Thus William F.Buckley cites Professor AmnonRubinstein, himself a socialist, ashaving made tta grudging, thoughelegant, admission in a televisioncolloquy a year or two ago [1971-2]in Israel: tOn the whole,' saidRubinstein, tthose systems thathave put liberty ahead of equalityhave done better by equality thanthose that have put equality aboveliberty'," an idea Buckley very muchshares,4 as does Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

But others, who wish for greaterequality than the grossly unaidedeye is able to fathom in a capitalistsystem, would interfere with privateeconomic arrangements by usingthe state's coercive power. And herethe obvious differences are a matterofdegree: some would have the stateinterfere only as a result of majority vote and only by taking awaysome, not all, of a person's privateproperty, thus ensuring that eachperson receives from the public coffers only as much as it is deemed hettneeds."

Given the contemporary climate,it is safe to say that Irving Kristol isright when he writes that in our daythe idea that the income tax shouldhave redistributive effects is nolonger shocking. All about us wefind evidence of such a passionwhich has now gained respectabil-


ity. What especially concerns Kristol, however, is what he takes to be areluctance inherent in the capitalistideology to come forth with its ownnecessary moral justification. Thus,for example, he deplores Friedrichvon Hayek's alleged resistance tothe very idea. of judging whethercapitalism is just. Kristol writeswith some alarm that in his otherwise brilliant book, The Constitutionof Liberty, Hayek offers an ((argument against viewing capitalism asa system that incarnates any idea ofjustice."5

Unfortunately, Kristol missesHayek's major point-even moreclearly spelled out in his recentbook, Law, Legislation and Liberty,where he answers Kristol's argument directly-which is to deny thatsocial justice could possibly meananything. Or, rather, the concept is(tcapable of meaning almost anything one likes"6: usually based onthe analogy with human distribution of rewards, where it is appropriate to have some guiding principles, the concept misleads.

After all, the function of the market is simply ((to indicate to peoplewhat they ought to do if the order isto be maintained on which they allrely."7 Indeed this is precisely whythe market works: you are successful if your product is wanted (e.g.,paid for) in the market place; if not,your claim that somehow it udeserves" success is empty. Only by

forcing people to buy what they donot wish to have-whether this bean outmoded railroad or horse-andbuggy, an inefficient way of producing steel or television receivers,a boring (or even obscene and revolting) form of art-eould you be rewarded once you have failed in themarket place. Is that tJustice"? Doesit not look like its very opposite?

But to say that Hayek dismissesthe quest for ((social" justice as illusory does not mean that he is eitheroblivious or indifferent to justice assuch. Competition justly carried outprohibits fraud and violence. Andthis is the same idea that plays socentral a role in Adam Smith's system of natural liberty. To take awayfrom another, by force or fraud, isttinjury" and thus ttthe violation ofjustice."

Without Force or Fraud

Capitalism is supposed to allowfor free transactions in a world notpreviously redistributed (accordingto whatever scheme) through forceor fraud. To continue on a just path,there must be no positive interference (or tttakings," as the lawyerwould have it). Only then will itwork to produce the maximum possible prosperity for all-not regardless but, on the contrary, because ofits justice.

((Social" justice, on the other hand,would have boggled the mind of anAdam Smith as it does Hayek's and

1980 FACING THE MORAL ATTACK ON CAPITALISM 497

mine. A strong advocate of ttbeneficence," Smith not only applaudedcharity but demanded that a trulymagnanimous man be compassionate and understand the limits ofpower and riches, those ttenormousand operose machines contrived toproduce a few trifling conveniencesto the body."8 Yet ttbeneficence" isstrictly distinguished from tJustice."One mayor may not engage in theformer, depending on inclinationand sympathy; the latter, on theother hand, must be observed onpain of worldly punishment.

Smith may have thought of beneficence as a means to attainHGod's justice" on earth; but hewould certainly have been puzzled ifnot quite horrified by attempts toimpose it through the state in theguise of social justice. Hayek's refusal to discuss such a concept anyfurther seems to me to be the onlyphilosophically respectable approach.

Inequality Guaranteed

Government-enforced Usocial justice" leads to the sharpest inequalities. Indeed, when the statesteps in allegedly to restore ttsocialjustice," invariably the result is thevery opposite of what was originallyintended. The literature describingthe great gulf that is govemmentsponsored inequality is too large,but one of the very best documentson the subject is Hedrick Smith's

The Russians, particularly ChapterI, ttThe Privileged Class: Dachas andZHs."

My own experience in communistRoma'nia where I spent the firstfourteen years of my life is in fullaccord with Smith's observations. Iremember well the segregated housing: the leaders lived in villas thatwere off-limits to the rest of us whilewe waited to be assigned our eightsquare meters of real estate per person in a prescribed city or villagechosen at the discretion of bureaucrats who cared little about the distance from our relatives and friends.(Since then, matters have worsened:all uninvited citizens are now actually prevented by the police fromstrolling along the official streets ofthe Jianu district.)

There were also the segregatedshops: we, the unprivileged, couldonly gaze through the windows offancy stores with foreign productsfull of such delicacies as off-seasonvegetables and shoes that fit, unavailable to us no matter whether ornot we might have had the money tobuy such products.

Then came the segregated vacation spots: we knew exactly whichvillas on the Black Sea were reserved for Western tourists, forEastern Bloc visitors, for the Romanian elite, and for the rest of thefortunate members of the proletariat who managed by hook or(mostly) by crook to be put on ««the

498 THE FREEMAN

list." A vacationer who happened towander into the Uwrong" hotelwould be immediately arrested-anapartheid the likes of which moneycan never quite buy.

And of course there was alwaysthe early lesson in school, where welearned no later than kindergarten,before we had been able to spell outthe red-lettered slogans decoratingour walls, that some among us hadbeen picked by a kind of irrevocablebecause ideological fate and wereimmune to the rules of ordinarywhich is to say sandbox-justice.

I remember one well-dressed littlefellow protesting my outrage at anunexplained confiscation of what Itook to be my personal buildingblocks by right of first possessionand useful (if admittedly unproductive) employment: urll tell mydaddy," he said, ((and he is gonnamake you go away." I snatched myblocks right back, without understanding till much later the reasonfor my mother's livid complexion atthe time I proudly recounted myadventure with all the braggadocioof a potential Gulag inmate.

To return, then, to the title of

Francis E. MahaffyIDEAS ON

Solzhenitsyn's address before his(largely apathetic) Harvard audience: ((A World Split Apart." So it isindeed split, in the communist systems themselves, into classes ofpower: the planners versus theplanned, the decision-makers asagainst the large mass of the people.All of this in the name, naturally, of((social justice." But the price, in-evitably, is freedom. And to callsuch a state of affairs (Justice" is anabuse not only of language but ofcommon sense. i

-FOOTNOTES-

lAlexander Solzhenitsyn, etA World SplitApart," National Review, July 7, 1978, p. 839.

2Ibid.3Alexander Solzhenitsyn et al., eds. From

Under the Rubble (Boston-Toronto: Little,Brown and Company, 1974), p. 31.

4William F. Buckley, Jr., Four Reforms-AGuide for the Seventies (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1973), p. 23.

5Irving Krietol, Two Cheers for Capitalism(New York: Basic Books, 1978), p. 259.

8F. A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty,volume 2 (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1976), p. 79.

'Ibid., p. BO.aAdam Smith, A Theory ofMoral Sentiments

(London, 1861), p. 262.

UBERTY

ONLY when the state is restricted to the administration of justice, andeconomic creativity thus freed from arbitrary restraints, will conditionsexist for making possible a lasting improvement in the welfare of themore miserable peoples of the world.

BAFFLING to many reporters was thealleged change of character in JimJones. The tragic events in Guyanawere said to ~~defy rationalanalysis."

Unfortunately, however, themechanics of mania are built intoour fondest political and religiousbeliefs. They need only mass weariness with responsibility, and acharacter with charisma, to set thewheels grinding down the final roadto Jonestown.

Are we not taught righteous loyalty to leadership in public school?Don't we learn surrender to anotherhuman being as saint or saviour inchurch? Aren't we trained to hopeall our lives that ~~the right man"will come along, that the «right system" will prevail?

A would-be leader's sense of compassion and humanity may begenuine, or he may be nothing but apetty opportunist who sees a ready

Mrs. Robertson has a background in journalism,education, and advertising, and live. In Los Angele.with her husband and daughter.

Constance Robertson

Followthe

Leader?market in religion or politics-butthe outcome is the same.

When this ((right man" tries tomeet all the longings we dump uponhim, when he sees that his ownecstatic and extravagant promisescannot be humanly met, what doeshe do?

Can we expect him to publiclyannounce that it was all a mistake,folks, go on home? Or can we expecthim to resort to expediency and deception, in order to keep alive thefond illusion called leadership.

And when we become uneasilyaware that relinquishing our interests to another is not working, whatdo we do? Do we admit it looks likewe were all wrong? That we shouldfigure out things for ourselves? Ordo we permit, even encourage ourchosen leader to manufacture miracles and present us with programs.

Jim Jones' change in character isno mystery. By investing him withthe responsibility for their interests,his followers corrupted him assurely as he later ruined them.

499


Several decades ago in a nationtorn by war and ravaged by inflation, a man came along with a system that offered strong medicine forhope, prosperity, and renewed pride.This man's passion and eloquence,his sincerity and dedication to hisnation's rise, and his energetic radiopresentations to reach the mindsand hearts of the people-all combined to assure the simple and theintellectual alike that a true leaderhad risen. Women swooned, mencried, and God was thanked that atlast these beleaguered human beingscould be led to their high and holydestiny-as· Master Race.

Never mind that his System wasimperfect, requiring hatred for individuality and usurpation of property. All the suffering was for ((thecommon good." Never mind thattheir beloved leader fell into pathetic fits and tantrums. Surely he wasbeleaguered by the burdens of greatness. Never mind the talk of murders and persecutions and personalaberrations. Great men are alwaysmisunderstood. His followers remained loyal-to the end.

Hitler and his movement is history now, but human nature has notchanged. We still pin our hopes onanyone who even talks about competence and vision-which are qualities we need to develop in ourselves,not look for in others. But we aredisarmed, for usually an influentialcreature comes cloaked in the garb

of respectability, beguiling evenhimself in his dapper uniform, hispoliticians' pinstripes, or the venerated robes of religion.

How many of us are aware ofExecutive Order 11921? (FederalRegister, Vol. 41, No. 116, June 15,1976.) Should any President find (ordesire to create) a cause to declareNational Emergency, this ExecutiveOrder allows the following: completegovernment censorship, usurpationof all production and distributionfacilities (food, water, power, healthservices), management of all highways, streets, aviation equipmentand facilities, plus more. It meanscomplete control of the ways andmeans ofour lives, ifour leader evencalls a situation a national emergency.

I'm less concerned over that likelyevent than I am over our blind reaction to it. Weary of our nationalmalaise, concerned about worldevents, eager to have a renewedsense of direction, will we fall intothe People's Temple trap? Will we,in fear and in gratitude, further empower a President with the surrender of our rightful responsibilities?In an emotional orgy of martialmusic and slick slogans, will we confuse our individual ethics with ((ourleader's" personal ambitions?

Will generations hence wonderthat we were impressed with aman's religious and dedicated attitude, that we were delighted with

1980 FOLLOW THE LEADER? 501

his righteous and charismaticanger? Will they comprehend howwe slavishly rendered up our dailyfreedom, in misplaced hope and fear,to a President who could not resist~~great leadership" and the ~~will ofthe people."

I'm all for defending my country.I'll fight if I have to, with a pen or agun, for my family, my life, my liberty, my· property. And I will joinwith those of a like mind, against allcoercion, whether foreign or domestic. But ~~my leader," in war and inpeace, will have to fend for himself. Iwill not play Follow the Leader. Thebloody footprints from that age-oldcon-game are smeared all over worldhistory. I will not go down asanother sad statistic, as one of millions who relied on their government and trusted in their leader.

History's most recent reminder ofour human gullibility, of the degrading symbiosis between avid leaderand devoted follower, was Guyana.Jim Jones skillfully combined religion and politics to establish leadership over 1,000 conscientious andidealistic American people. Howmany more of us hold the same falsebeliefs-that our well-being is better off under the influence of aleader and his organization?

Rather than a mystery, the loss ofintegrity, property, liberty, and lifeis the logical outcome of our attachment to leaders and institutions.Degradation, despair, and death are

the historically proven prices we payfor looking outside ourselves for salvation.

Our solutions lie within. Inspiration is within. What we know as Godis within each individual, no more soand no less so than in any otherindividual.

We need only to cultivate our personal self-esteem, but in gratitude,not in arrogance. We need only tocultivate our self-reliance, but inawareness, not contempt, for theconcerns of those around us. We cantravel the middle path of Dignity, asneither Manipulator nor the Manipulated. We can exercise what webelieve in an involved and responsible existence, but we need neversacrifice our life to the personal values of another.

Shall we in the United Statesblunder into a debacle, surrenderingin hopeful worship and obedience toa leader who touts ~~the commongood" and ~~self-sacrifice"? Millionsfell for that propaganda in Germany. One thousand Americans fellfor it in Guyana.

Or shall we choose to be awareand responsible individualists,whose love for our families, ourcountry, and our God is expressed ina calculated disdain of leaders,causes, and mass movements.

Know that we have a choice, inevery action and attitude. Let freedom be. ,

Allan C. Brownfeld

KnowledgeandDecisions

THOMAS SoWELL, professor of economics at U.C.L.A. and the authorof such important books as ClassicalEconomics Reconsidered (1974) andRace and Economics (1975) is one ofthe most articulate advocates of thefree market in the United States atthe present time. Interestingly, thefact that he is black has causedmany who might not otherwisecarefully consider his work to pay itthe attention it deserves.

In this book, he illustrates indepth the superiority of the marketto various forms of collective decision making, and shows the mannerin which the collective idea hasgained in the U.S., tracing trends ineconomics, law and politics whichare moving us away from freedom.

Mr. 8rown"ld. of A....ndrla. Virgin"............nee.UllIor. editor .nd lecturer npec..llrlntBreated Inpolltlclll eo"nee.

502

Thomas Sowell

In modern society, he notes, thenumber of separate individual decisions required to do something soapparently simple as bringing aslice ofbread and pat ofbutter to thetable-let alone something so com..,plex as exploring space-is staggering to the mind. Yet processes involving a multitude of such decisions are undertaken every minuteof the day by untold millions of people.

Dr. Sowell portrays society as acollection of interconnected andoverlapping decision-making unitsranging from U a married couple to apolice department to a national government." They all operate underthe inherent constraint of scarcity,and thus face the necessity ofengaging in Utrade-offs." Parents decidinghow much time and energy to devoteto the care of each of their children

KNOWLEDGE AND DECISIONS 503

or a police department determiningwhich laws it will enforce most vigorously both must forgo some desirable options in order to pursueothers. The weighing of costs andbenefits that characterizes theeconomic sphere can be seen at workthroughout the whole range ofhuman choice: nSocial values ingeneral are incrementally variable:neither safety, diversity, rationalarticulation, nor morality is categorically·a ~good thing' to have more of,without limits. All are subject todiminishing returns, and ultimatelynegative returns."

Knowledge and Decisions byThomas Sowell. Published byBasic Books, 10 E. 53rd St.,New York, N.Y. 10022, 1980.422 pages, $18.50 cloth.

There is a radical difference· between the kind. of knowledge possessed by producers .of goods andintellectuals or bureaucrats. UTo saythat a farm boy knows how to milk acow," the author writes, ~tis to saythat we can send him out to the barnwith an empty pail and expect himto return with milk. To say that acriminologist understands crime isnot to say that we can send him outwith a grant or a law and expect himto return with a lower crime .rate.He is more likely. to return with areport on why he has not· succeededyet, and including the inevitable

need for more money, a larger staff,more sweeping powers, etc. In short,the degree of authentication ofknowledge may be lower in thethigher' intellectual levels and muchhigher in those areas which intellectuals choose to regard as tlower.'"

Incentives Differ

When any area of concern becomes the province of governmentofficials, a different structure of incentives exists than when free market incentives were working. Government decision makers, for example, may act rationally within thecontext of their own personal· andbureaucratic incentives andconstraints-such as the desire forre-election or promotion, or for increasing the power of theiragency-but this may produce a socially harmful result.

Thus, Dr. Sowell argues, ttMuchcriticism of tincompetent bureaucrats' implicitly assumes that thosein the bureaucracy are pursuing theassigned goal but failing to achieveit due to lack of ability. In fact, theymay be responding very rationallyand ably to .the set of incentivesfacing them. For example, government regulatory agencies are oftenvery ineffective in controlling theindustry or sector which they have alegal mandate to regulate. But it is acommon pattern in such.agencies forthose indecision-making positionsto (1) earn far less money than'com-


parable individuals earn in the regulated sector, and (2) after a fewyears' experience to move on to jobsin the regulated sector. In short,they are regulating their future employers. Under such a set of incentives, it is hardly surprising thatdecision makers ... approach thosewhom they are assigned to regulatewith an attitude that is sympathetic, cooperative, and even protective."

The examples of such an incentivestructure at work, Dr. Sowell shows,are numerous, among them, the Interstate Commerce Commission andthe trucking industry, and the CivilAeronautics Board and the airlineindustry. He. declares that, ttMuchdiscussion of the pros and cons ofvarious tissues' overlooks the crucialfact that the most basic decision iswho makes the decision, under whatconstraints, and subject to whatfeedback mechanisms."

Numerous Options

When government decidessomething-it decides it foreveryone, often wrongly. ttThe advantages of market institutions,"Dr. Sowell states, U over governmentinstitutions are . . . that people canusually make a better choice out ofnumerous options than by followinga single prescribed process. The diversity of personal tastes insuresthat no given institution will become the answer to a human prob-

lem in the market. The need forfood, housing, or other desideratacan be met in a sweeping range ofways. Some of the methods mostpreferred by some will be the mostabhorred by others. Responsivenessto individual diversity means thatmarket processes necessarily produce tchaotic' results from the pointof view of any single given scale ofvalues. No matter which particularway you think people should behoused or fed (or their other needsmet) the market will not do it justthat way, because the market is nota particular set of institutions. People who are convinced that theirvalues are best-not only for themselves but for others-must necessarily be offended by many things thathappen in a market economy....The diversity of tastes satisfied by amarket may be its greatest economicachievement, but it is also itsgreatest political vulnerability."

Since an economy functions withscarce resources which have alternative uses, there must be somemethod of coordinating the rationing process and getting the mostoutput from the available input.Discussing the manner in which themarket proves itself the best sourceof such coordination, Dr. Sowellwrites: ttPrice movements economizeon the knowledge needed for givendecisions. Where such prices are artificially maintained by force, ratherthan through voluntary transac-

1980 KNOWLEDGE AND DECISIONS 505

tions, they convey misinformationas to relative scarcities, and therefore lead the economy away from theoptimal use of resources. Accurateprices resulting from voluntary exchange permit the economy toachieve optimal performance interms of satisfying each individualas much as he can be. satisfied, byhis own standards, without sacrificing others by their own respectivestandards. The results must, however, appear tchaotic' to any observer judging by any given set ofstandards applied to all. . . . Themost basic question is not what isbest but who shall decide what isbest. . . . Figures of speech abouttsociety' as decision maker ignorethe diversity of individual preferences which are responsible formany of the very phenomena inquestion-whether economic, social,or political."

Timed for Short Run

Political decision making also hasa time horizon which is confined tothe very short run. ttThe time horizon of the constituent," the authorpoints out, ttmay be his lifetime, andperhaps that of his children, or eventhe longer range interest of thewhole society as an on-going enterprise. The inherent incentive structure facing a political surrogate emphasizes the time remaining between a given decision and the nextelection. The opportunity for policies

with immediate benefits and longerrun negative consequences are obvious, not only in theory but in practice."

Government agencies also haveno interest in solving the ttproblems"they were created to deal with. Ifthey succeeded, their jobs wouldend. The result: tt. . . the agencymust then apply more activity perresidual unit of evil, just in order tomaintain its current employmentand appropriations level. If theagency is supposed to fight discrimination against minorities, itmust successively expand its concept of what constitutes tdiscrimination' and what constitutes a tminority.' Urgent tasks such as securingbasic civil rights for blacks ultimately give way to activities designed to get equal numbers ofcheerleaders for girls' high schoolathletic teams. A nongovernmentalorganization, such as the March ofDimes, could-as it did, after conquering polio-turn its attention toother serious diseases, but if it had agovernment mandate strictly limited to polio, it would have littlechoice but to continue into such activities as writing the history ofpolio, collecting old polio posters,etc., while children were still dyingof birth defects and other maladies... a nongovernmental organizationsubject to feedback from donors orcustomers has incentives and constraints that lead to institutional


decisions more attuned to rationalsocial trade-offs."

The question, therefore, is not thenature of the ,men and women incharge of governmentprograms, butthe nature of bureaucracy itself:((Bureaucracies, by definition, arecontrolled by administrative orpolitical decisions,not by incentivesand constraints communicatedthrough market price fluctuations.... The rank and pay of a bureaucratis determined by his degree of(responsibility'-in categoriesdocumentable to third parties judging a process rather than a result.He is paid by how many people hemanages and how much money headministers. Overstaffing, (needless'paperwork, and (unnecessary' delaysmay be such only relative to socialpurposes-not relative to the incentives established. Every (needless'employee is a reason for his superiorto get a higher salary ..."

Government Is Not Society

One key myth which ThomasSowell wants to dispel is that, somehow, government is the equivalentof ((society." It is not. Instead, hewrites, ((it is often not a consolidateddecisionmaking" unit but an overlapping montage of autonomousbranches, agencies, and powercliques-each of these responsive todifferent outside coalitions of interest groups or ideologists.,. . . Abureaucracy which can envelop its

processes in intricate and unintelligible regulations and bury its performance under mountains oftangential statistics has achievedthe security of insulation from feedback. Knowledge costs-whetherinherent or contrived-are institutional insulations.~'

Trends today, both in the U.S. andelsewhere in the Western world, areclearly away from freedom. Democracy, Dr. Sowell reminds us, is aprocess, not a value. People can givetheir freedom away through thedemocratic, process, .. as many,havedone. Hitler, after all, 'came to power,.in Germany through that very democratic process.

Dr. Sowell discusses the role ofintellectuals in eroding freedom, arole played by intellectuals in othersocieties as well, for freedom deniesthem the power to inflict their ideasupon others. He chronicles the increasingly legislative role played·bythe courts and the non-electedbureaucracy and laments that,(tOver the years, but especially inthe twentieth century, the constitutional division of powers has' beeneroded or destroyed . . . the sheergrowth in size of the federal government has given it new powersderived neither from' the .Constitution nor from any statutes, but inherent in the disposition of vastsums of money, many importantjobs, and great discretionary powersof enforcing a massive and ever

1980 KNOWLEDGE AND DECISIONS 507

growing amount of laws and regulations. . . . The size of governmentaffects the ability of the citizens tomonitor what it does-or even theability of their elected political surrogates to monitor the activities of afar-flung administrative empire....None of this is historically unique.In the late stages of the RomanEmpire its civil servants tfelt able toexhibit a serene defiance of the Emperor.' ... The same was later true ofCzarist Russia, for John Stuart Milldeclared, tThe Czar himself is powerless against the bureaucraticbody; he can send anyone of them toSiberia, but he cannot govern without them, or against their will.' Theexperience of Imperial China wasvery much the same."

The free enterprise system is, Dr.Sowell believes, worthy of supportnot only because it is the most efficient but, far more important, because it is the only economic systemconsistent with other freedoms.Those who oppose the free market,whatever their rhetoric, are reallyopposed to freedom, for which theywould like to substitute their ownideological notions.

F. A. Harper

Although he understands thenegative trends, Thomas Sowell isnot a pessimist. If he were, he wouldnot have produced this thoughtfuland incisive defense of freedom. Heconcludes: ttHistorically, freedom isa rare and fragile thing. It hasemerged out of the stalemates ofwould-be oppressors. Freedom hascost the blood of millions in obscureplaces and in historic sites rangingfrom Gettysburg to the Gulag Archipelago. A frontal assault on freedom is still impossible in Americaand in most of Western civilization.Perhaps nowhere in the world isanyone frankly against it, thougheverywhere there are those prepared to scrap it for other thingsthat shine more brightly for themoment. That something that costsso much in human lives should besurrendered piecemeal in exchangefor visions or rhetoric seems grotesque. Freedom is not simply theright of intellectuals to circulatetheir merchandise. It is, above all,the right of ordinary people to findelbow room for themselves and arefuge from the rampaging presumptions of their tbetters.' " i

IDEAS ON

UBERTY

IF man is to continue his self-improvement, he must be free to exercisethe powers ofchoice with which he has been endowed. When discrimination is not allowed according to one's wisdom and conscience, bothdiscrimination and conscience will atrophy in the same manner as anunused muscle.

A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

The Worldin the

Grip of anIdea

CLARENCE B. CARSON is well knownto readers ofThe Freeman. He has away of reducing complex things toessentials, presenting his arguments in simple common-sense language that cuts through the verbiage foisted on the world byideologists of all stripes.

His The World in the Grip of anIdea argues that majority governments throughout the world arepretty much all of a piece. Some ofthem call themselves communist,others profess to be socialist of onetype or another (there is Arab socialism, European democratic socialism,Mrican socialism and so on). TheScandinavians speak of their middleway. The British have been~~gradualist" collectivists since the1880s, and their Fabianism hasrubbed off not only on India but onpractically all of their former colonies. The United States, with its

508

Uprogressivism," may have lagged abit behind England, but it has beengoing in the same direction.

The Cold War, then, has represented a quarrel over means, tempoand personal leadership rather thana struggle over conflictingphilosophies. The ~~idea" that gripsthe world is that everybody shouldagree that all efforts should be concerted to achieve human felicity onthis planet, and that the State is theproper instrument to carry out thegrand crusade.

The only trouble with the ~~idea" isthat no two human beings have thesame conception of felicity. One manwants to climb Everest, another isintent on being a gourmet. Whenthe communists run up against thisfact they fall back on the Rousseauistic theory that once Usociety"is remade, the U new man" willemerge, willing to forswear individ-

THE WORLD IN THE GRIP OF AN IDEA 509

ualism in favor of supporting theGeneral Will. The Fascists word ittheir own way-their goals are nationalist as well as socialist. Fabiansand progressives are willing to approach the grand goal in piecemealfashion. But they all agree that theforce of the State is essential toreach the Utopian end.

The Consequences of Force

When force is used to make peopleover, it brutalizes its wielders andmakes displaced persons of millions.Some states are worse than others,but, as Harold Laski once said in amoment of confession, ((All govern-ments are bloody." It's a matter ofdegree. What Mr. Carson has done isto set up a degree chart, which willgive consolation to people who arelucky enough to have fallen amongFabians rather than revolutionaryMarxists or Fascists. But the degreechart isn't going to help in the longrun unless there is a revival of voluntarism and a reinstatement of theidea of society as something quiteseparate from the State.

The quarrel between revolutionary and evolutionary socialism issimilar to the quarrel within Christendom in the seventeenth century.Mr. Carson devotes separate sections to the various anti-religiousreligions that have taken over indifferent parts of the world as thesocialist gospel has made its converts. Lenin gave Marxism a ter-

rorist twist in Russia, and Hitler, inthe Germany of the late Twentiesand Thirties, proved himself an aptpupil of the Bolshevists, whose murderous zealotry in dispatching theCzar's family included killing theroyal spaniel.

The World In the Grip of anIdea by Clarence B. Carson.Published by ArlingtonHouse, Westport, Connecticut06880. 562 pages, $14.95cloth. The book also is available from The Foundation forEconomic Education, Inc.,Irvington-on-Hudson, NewYork 10533.

It would be too much to blame theemergence of revolutionarysocialism on the German mind, forMarx owed much to French revolutionary theorists as well as to Hegel.And, after all, the most influentialpreacher of the evolutionarysocialist idea was a now-forgottenGerman named Eduard Bernstein.He saved western Europe for theFabian ideal. But idealism itselfhassurvived neither in Russia nor inFabian England or Sweden. Dispensing with respect for individuals,evolutionary socialism becomes aseries of negotiated compromises between groups. This entails atyranny of sorts as individuals aremade pawns within a group.


Political and SplrnualMr. Carson's history is brilliantly

written. It brings us down to thepresent moment and his theory ofthe ~~two braces." All socialism isbraced to communism, for the ideathat has the world in its grip culminates in a state power monopoly.But braces, as Mr. Carson explains,work both ways. The dependence ofevolutionary socialism on communism is largely spiritual-it is,says Mr. Carson, ~~the vision of aforward-marching, triumphantworld socialism riding the wave ofHistory." But communism itself is acounterproductive economic system.It depends on the non-communistworld for inventions, for technological innovation, and even for periodicgrain shipments, for survival.

Mr. Carson says the mutual dependence is bound to be only temporary: the lust of the communists isfor domination. Mr. Carson offershis readers a ufearful prospect," withvarious centers of communism contending with each other, with terrorism and violence being steppedup on a world scale.

A Ray of Hope

Mr. Carson is not without hope,however. He ends with an odd attack on all sorts of organization,including the modem corporation.In this he echoes Bertrand Russellwho wrote Freedom Versus Organiza-

tion and the Hilaire Belloc of TheServile State. I think he overreacheshimself here: the big corporation isno monster as long as people are freeto patronize rivals and to quit theirjobs or sell their stock. But he isquite right when he says there is ahint of spring in the air. People areweary of socialism, of depending oninstitutions. ~~Men," he says, ~~are

beginning to relearn an old truth: ~If

you want something done right, do ityourself.' Specialization is breakingdown ... they are considering individual devices of providing electricity for their homes. In a thousanduncharted ways they are seeking todisentangle themselves from organizations and collectives."

Mr. Carson objects to being anumber in a-computer. But omnipotent government says you musthave a social security number. Asthe computer memory banks becomemore and more cluttered, however,the police power can't keep up withthe infonnation that is stored. Moreand more people are becoming adeptin avoiding getting the details oftheir lives into the computer in thefirst place. As Alice Widener hasnoted, we have a thriving underground economy. I wish Mr. Carsonwould devote his next book toexploring the extent of thateconomy-it might give real substance to his feeling that spring isindeed in the air. ,

1980 OTHER BOOKS 511

FREE TO CHOOSE:A PERSONAL STATEMENTby Milton and Rose Friedman(Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 757Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017) 1979338 pages. $9.95 cloth

Reviewed by William L. Baker

STEAMROLLER GOVERNMENT is thebane of twentieth century life. It isthe trademark of our time. Expanding budgets, unfettered taxation,galloping inflation, burgeoningbureaucracy, tireless assaults uponindividualism and productivity arethe tragic earmarks of our painfullycollectivized world. Free to Choosetackles this Leviathan and dispelsmuch of the ignorance, the manycliches, and the persistent mythswhich envelop the welfare state. Author of a growing shelf offree marketbooks and monetary treatises, Milton Friedman brings to his latesttask the rarefied prestige of theNobel Prize, a formidable array ofmental tools and academic skills.Mrs. Friedman is a scholar in herown right.

Essentially, the Friedmans tell usthat the market economy is indispensable to a free society. It is thefree market which generatesmaximum production and providesthe means for every other liberty. Asan aid in convincing recalcitrantreaders, the authors invoke the tcin_

visible hand" of the redoubtableAdam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations appeared the same year as theDeclaration of Independence C~a

curious coincidence"}.The ~~miracle" of American pro

ductivity, the authors point out,stems from the market-free menengaged in voluntary exchanges.Private initiative unrestrained bythe bureaucratic tyranny ofeconomic controls produced thewealthiest country ever. Critical tothis paradigm is the role of prices astransmitters of information-a peculiarly ~~Austrian" notion. It wasAdam Smith's great ~~flash of genius," however, that prices (emerging as they do from voluntary transactions) coordinate the myriad activities of millions of unsuspectingactors blissfully unaware that theyare part of any general system orplan.

It is this apparent ~~planlessness,"

this uanarchy of production" of freemarket capitalism that interventionists and collectivists decry sovacuously, ignorant that the underlying harmony is bolstered andguided by the phenomenon of price,which in turn is the reliable reflection of consumer spending. Thisissue is not, and never has been,tcplanning" versus ~~not planning"but, rather, who shall do the planning? Shall production be dictatedby the socialist board of centralplanning; or shall producers be

512 THE FREEMAN

guided by the millions of customerscasting their Uballots," expressingtheir wants in the daily plebiscite ofthe market? Only the latter is compatible with a society of free people.

There is an excellent chapterfavoring free trade, establishing thepoint that ~~controlson foreign tradeextend to domestic trade." Social Security and other uwelfare" measuresare shown to be hollow promises.Government schooling is severelycritiqued, as are labor unions, andthe various regulatory agencies allegedly designed to protect the consumer.

Only when they come to the chapters on inflation and the depressiondo the Friedmans abandon their freemarket scenario. Here the authorsare all for the Federal Reserve System (a notorious instrument of governmental hegemony over the market), government sponsorship of themoney supply, and a yearly rate ofofficially prescribed doses of inflation. It is true that the Friedmanscorrectly diagnose the economic culpability of government. Moreover,they easily pierce the standard fallacies that it is the greedy businessman, the unions, or rapaciousArab sheiks that generate inflation.But the ~~cure" which is served up isdubious indeed. It is to control inflation by carefully calibrated doses ofinflation! Government would legallyexpand the money supply at a fixedannual rate-as if the political pro-

cess could be trusted to achieve aneconomic end!

Furthermore, the authors areconvinced that the Great Depressionresulted from a deflation, a toosharp reduction in the amount ofmoney in circulation. Certainly theyerr. An elementary application ofSay's Law would enable us to understand that a contraction in themoney supply followed by a corresponding drop in wages and pricesneed present no insurmountable difficulties. Except for the initialperiod of readjustment inescapableduring any period of deflation, noserious curtailment of goods andservices need result. However, ifthe government attempts to artifically enforce yesterday's prices withtoday's monetary quantity, tragicdislocations and bottlenecks are inevitable. That was the legacy of theGreat Depression: a futile attemptto prop up inflated prices with adeflated currency.

The Friedmans believe that weneed a governmentally sponsoredcentral bank of issue. Misesianswould argue that the existence ofsuch a bank has been the problemall along. What is really needed is afree market money divorced fromthe arbitrary acts of power brokersand political collaborators. At anyrate, to couple the ~~freemarket"

with a governmental monetarybureaucracy amounts to a regrettable contradiction in terms. ,

Documents

The Freeman 1980 - Foundation for Economic Education · 452 THE FREEMAN August organisms but mistakes those caused by infectious ideas for other things. They are called wars, or crusades,