Part Three: Language

18

Watch Your Language

Language is crucial to clear communication. It makes distinctions. We can hardly express ourselves without it. Our very thoughts can either be brought forth, or not, depending upon whether we have sufficient verbiage with which to attain this end. If the pen is mightier than the sword because it can determine the direction in which this weapon is aimed, then words are even mightier than the pen, for without the former the latter is useless.

Which words have we lost? Which have been thrust down our throats by the forces of socialism, statist feminism, and political correctness? What changes are imperative, if we are to even have a chance to turn things around in a more freedom-oriented direction?

Ms.

Mrs. and Miss have been all but taken from us, and we have been given the execrable Ms. in their place. This is a crucial loss, for the modern language in this regard papers over, nay, obliterates, the distinction between the married and unmarried state for women, while the “archaic” words positively exult in this distinction. This alteration has become so well entrenched by the “inclusive” language movement that even some ostensibly conservative writers and periodicals have adopted it.

Why is this a tragedy? Because it is a disguised attack on the family. Whether the feminists accept this or not, virtually all heterosexual bondings are initiated by the male of the species. (There are good and sufficient sociobiological reasons why this should be the case.) Anything that promotes this healthy and life-affirming trend must be counted as a good; anything that impedes it as a bad. If it is easy to distinguish between married and unmarried females, male initiative is to that extent supported; if not, then the opposite.

If unmarried males are given incentive to approach unmarried females, this supports the institution of marriage and heterosexuality. To the extent they approach married women, this not only undermines marriage, one of the main bulwarks of society, but directly attacks civilization by exacerbating jealousy and intra-male hostility.

Why have the feminists urged Ms. upon us? Ostensibly, because it is “unfair” to distinguish between women on the basis of marital status, but not men. If so, then far better to urge the analogous distinction Mister and Master for married and unmarried men, than to lose that for women. We live in a complex age; surely any institution which simplifies it, by costlessly giving us more information, not less, is to be applauded.

But the softening of this distinction between Mrs. and Miss has implications far removed from any questions of “fairness.” This can be seen by asking “Quo bono” from Ms? Those who benefit from making single women less available to heterosexual men are homosexual women, plus all those concerned with the so-called overpopulation problem. In economics, when there are large numbers of people or anything else involved, it is commonly assumed that at least some are on the margin.

In this case, there are males on the margin between approaching a female or not, and females on the margin between hetero- and homosexuality. Ms. moves society in the diametric opposite direction from the desirable in both these dimensions.

One argument against refusing to adopt to this modern consensus is that people should have the right to choose their own names. If someone wants to change from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, or from Don McCloskey to Dierdre McCloskey, that is their business. Polite people will refer to them by their chosen, not their given, names.

But this does not at all apply to titles. If I call myself King Block, or Emperor Block, no one need follow suit on this out of considerations of etiquette. Ms. is a title, not the name of any person. When in doubt, always use Miss, not Mrs. The former is or at least should be an honorific, not lightly to be bestowed in ignorance.

And the same analysis applies to using “he” to stand for “he” or “she,” or “him” for “him” or “her.” Our writing has become convoluted, and singular and plural no longer match, in an attempt to defer to the sensibilities of self-styled feminists. There is nothing more pathetic than a conservative magazine, attempting to score points against a feminist idea, and yet feeling constrained to use such “inclusive” language.

Could we have as successfully criticized Marxism, had we felt constrained to couch our attacks in Marxist language?

Developing Countries

It is errant leftism to call the underdeveloped countries of the world “developing.” This is a triumph of will and good intentions over reality; many of these countries are retrogressing, not at all developing. Why not call a spade a spade and insist upon truth in political economy? Let us reserve the honorific “developing” for those countries which have, however imperfectly, embraced capitalism and are hence growing, and use “underdeveloped” or “retrogressing” for those, such as North Korea or Cuba, which still cling to central planning and government ownership, and as a result are in the process of moving back to the economics of the Stone Age.

Rent-seeking

In the literature of the Public Choice school of economic thought, the phrase “rent-seeking” is used to described what, even for them, is a rather despicable act: using the power of the state to capture wealth which would not be forthcoming through ordinary market transactions. Examples include minimum wages, farm subsidies, tariffs, etc.

But why use the rather innocuous word “rent” to indicate what is really (indirect) theft? Why not, instead, characterize such acts as loot-seeking, booty-seeking, pillage-seeking, plunder-seeking, swag-seeking, ransack-seeking, theft-seeking or plain old robbery (via the intermediation of the government).

This Public Choice practice actually denigrates either one or two things that go by the same name. One is the ancient and honorable institution of collecting rent for land, or houses, or other property, instead of selling them outright. Is there supposed to be something wrong with being a landlord? The other is the concept of economic rent which depicts something that has no foregone alternative.

For example, when the price of Rembrandts increases, this does not call forth an additional supply of these paintings; their fortunate owners gain an economic rent. But why should this be denigrated? As a matter of justice, these particular people made these investments; why should they not profit from them? And as far as economic efficiency is concerned, these higher prices still play an allocative role.

To conflate either of these activities with running to government for special grants of privilege to undermine one’s competitors is thus an unwarranted attack on rational language. With friends like these, the freedom philosophy hardly needs enemies.

Social Justice

For any rational person, “social justice” would indicate a subset of justice focused more narrowly than the entire concept of just, presumably on “social” issues, whatever they are. But in the real word, this phrase applies not to a subcategory of justice, but rather to one particular perspective on justice, namely, that articulated by our friends on the left.

This places opponents of socialism, multiculturalism, etc., in the position of having to say that they oppose social justice. Wonderful, just wonderful. Far better to stick to our guns, to attempt to use language in a way we prefer, rather than have it dictated to us by our intellectual enemies.

In my view, we, too, should embrace “social justice.” However, of course, instead of taking an egalitarian position on the concept, we utilize our tried-and-true insights involving personal and private property rights, negative liberties, homesteading, etc.

Tax Subsidies

The government does not tax the churches. The government does not (yet) tax (and control) the Internet. Is this fair? Not at all, maintain some. These are tax subsidies. The government is subsidizing churches and e-mail, forcing the rest of us to pay more as a result. That is one way to look at the matter.

Another, a far more appropriate way, is that these are not subsidies at all. When some of us are allowed to keep our own hard-earned money in our pockets, to spend as we please and not as our masters in Washington D.C. wish, this is hardly a subsidy. Rather, this is part and parcel of private property rights. To take the opposite position is to implicitly acquiesce in the notion that the state really owns the entire wealth of the populace, and anything they leave us is an act of generosity, or subsidy.

This is nonsense on stilts. We are the legitimate owners of all we produce, and government doesn’t have a penny they didn’t first mulct from us.

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Tom Bethell on Property Rights

Tom Bethell is fast becoming a “point man” on the subject of private property rights. This reputation was initially garnered with the publication of his book The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages.

This was followed up with his Wall Street Journal column of December 27, 1999 entitled “Property Rights, Prosperity and 1,000 Years of Lessons.” Evidently, Bethell didn’t read, or at least not carefully enough, my critique of his book published in the Fall 1999 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, because he is up to his old tricks again: pretending to be an advocate of the private property philosophy while actually undermining it.

A quote from his latest missive:

The great legal innovation of this millennium was equality before the law, which first evolved in England. In the courts of common law, all men were seen to be created equal. This had momentous economic consequences. The new equality of status encouraged the freedom of contract and the rise of an exchange economy. The transmission of property became increasingly “horizontal”—from seller to buyer—and decreasingly vertical—from father to son. Wealth was democratized. It was acquired by those who, by virtue of their labor and ingenuity, merited it rather than inherited it. Contract superseded status.

Now this is more than passingly curious. Why does Bethell think fathers work so hard, save their money, innovate, etc., if not to help their sons in particular and their families in general?

The vertical vs. horizontal distinction is a good one. And, yes, Bethell is also correct in identifying the vertical relationship as the evil one, contrary to economic freedom and private property rights, and the horizontal one as the good one, consistent with these desiderata. But to claim that inheritance is contrary to merit, exchange and economic liberty is almost purposefully perverse. Very much to the contrary, inheritance, and, for that matter, gifts given during one’s life, are integral aspects of horizontal or voluntary institutions.

If Bethell is in such great opposition to inheritance, and if he wishes to act in a manner consistent with this perspective, then he must also oppose fathers giving their children birthday gifts, wedding presents, putting them through school, giving them foreign-language lessons, etc. But more. Some parents read their young children stories at bedtime, keep them properly fed, hug and kiss them all the time, adorn their homes with music, art, books, love, etc. Others, while stopping short of child abuse (and sometimes not), give their children a very different kind of monetary and nonmonetary “inheritance.” Is this “fair?” Of course not.

All children should choose their parents more carefully. But for the Bethell’s of the world, this, presumably, is something to be changed by the force of law. We’ve got to “democratize” things, don’t we?

A far better candidate for the role of oppressor in the vertical direction is the government, curiously not mentioned by our private-property-rights advocate. This is what philosopher Henry Maine was referring to when he famously recommended “contract” not “status.” In the bad old days, members of the government ruling class acquired wealth from commoners not on the basis of voluntary trade, but through various forms of statist compulsions. This is what Bethell should be opposing in the name of private property rights, not, forsooth, voluntary gift-giving.

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The Cuban Boy Controversy

What to do with six-year-old Elian Gonzalez? The position of Clinton and Reno is clear. Do not make this into a political football. Allow the courts or the INS or indeed, pretty much anyone else, to decide, as long as they make a determination in favor of Castro. We can reject the views of these Waco killers out of hand; they have already far too clearly established a record with regard to the rights of children.

The liberal’s views are also distressingly clear. One would have thought that they would favor keeping the Cuban boy in this country. After all, they are hardly well known as advocates of parental (that is, father’s) rights over children. But this episode is a major embarrassment for Castro and evidently the soft spot of liberals for communist dictators is stronger than their aversion to family values.

Nor have feminists acquitted themselves with distinction. This must be the first time in the history of the universe that they gave anything but short shrift to the wishes of the father, and completely ignored those of the mother.

And what of the Cuban-Americans? They have vociferously campaigned for the right of this young immigrant to stay in the U.S. But if they really felt this strongly, they would have spirited him away a long time ago.

The only group to be unsure about this whole episode are the libertarians. And with good reason, I shall argue. This is a case where the various libertarian principles apply only tangentially, and in seeming conflict.

Why?

Let us begin by considering the case for keeping Elian in the U.S. First of all, there is no clear evidence that the boy’s father really wants his son brought back to Cuba. He has, of course, testified to this effect, but anything said by anyone in that island nation has to be taken with a grain of salt; in a totalitarian dictatorship, all such statements are made under duress. The only way to determine the veracity of the father’s wishes would be if he repeated them in a relatively free country such as the U.S.

But even that would not be enough. He would have to do so, here, in the company of his entire family and indeed anyone else likely to be harmed by Fidel in revenge. But even that would not be enough to justify shipping Elian back to Cuba.

It is a basic axiom of penology that no one should be imprisoned unless he has committed a crime. Cuba is nothing more than a large jail. For proof of this, one need look no further than the very people with whom Elian escaped. And thousands more Cubans who have voted with their feet in a similar manner. A prison is a place from which people try to leave, but are forcibly prevented from doing so by their jailor. If Cuba does not fit this bill, it is difficult to see why not.

Elian, of course, has committed no crime. Therefore, to consign him to prison, even one as large as Cuba, would be a travesty of justice. If his father truly wishes for this result, and is willing to act to attain this end, then he is guilty of child abuse and should himself be incarcerated.

This point would be crystal clear even to liberals if, instead of a Cuban boy fleeing from that country, it was a Jewish boy attempting to escape from Nazi Germany. No one, perhaps excluding the U.S. Nazi party, would advocate us turning our backs on a child in such a case. Why the difference? This is because our intelligencia see the communists as much more benign than the Nazis. However, in terms of the number of citizens murdered, Mao (sixty million) and Stalin (twenty million) have it all over Hitler (ten million). In terms of percentage of total population killed, moreover, the communist Pol Pot is the “champion.”

Now let us consider the case for returning Elian home to his father. It is a basic postulate of libertarianism that the parents have the right to bring up the child. With the unfortunate death of Elian’s mother, this right passes on to the father. There is, of course, one caveat: if there is any child abuse, all bets are off; these rights, and much more, are ended.

The problem is, where precisely is the cut-off point between responsible child rearing and abuse? When parents stub out their cigarettes on the stomachs of their children, this point is clearly passed. When a parent spanks his child for not doing his homework or brushing his teeth, clearly it is not.

What, then, of the present case? Is it per se child abuse to bring up progeny in Cuba? This would mean that all parents now living in that troubled island nation are guilty of this crime. When and if this communist country is liberated, all heads of families (who have not at least tried to escape at the risk of their lives) should be punished. This seems rather far-fetched, because, say what you will about Castro, in terms of mass murder he is no Mao, Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot.

And yes, were a black slave in Georgia in 1830 to insist that his son, now free in the North be brought back to live with him, or were a Jew in Nazi Germany in 1943 to make the same demand regarding his son living safely in, say, Canada, each would reasonably be considered guilty of child abuse. But the same cannot be said for Cuba vis-à-vis the U.S.

For those who doubt this, consider the following. America is not the freest country in the world. Contrary to fans at basketball games, we are not number one. According to the rankings put forth in the book Economic Freedom of the World 1975–1995¹, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand are all freer.

Suppose that a distant cousin or an uncle from say, New Zealand, kidnapped an American child and kept him there on the ground that his country was freer than the U.S., and it would therefore be child abuse to return him (I owe this example to Jeff Tucker).

Would we give such a claim any credence? Hardly. We would give it the back of our hand. In like manner, just because the U.S. is undoubtedly a more free country than Cuba does not logically imply it is child abuse to raise a child there. And if not, then, at least for the libertarian, the father’s wishes are paramount.

What, then, is the solution? We must ensure that the return of the child is really the wish of Elian’s sole surviving parent. This can be accomplished by allowing Juan Miguel Gonzalez, along with his family and friends, to come to Florida to pick him up. (I assume that Elian is too young to make this decision for himself.) Then, he and only he should be allowed to decide.

Printed with kind permission of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. This article was initially posted as “Daily Article” on http://www.mises.org website.

¹ Gwartney, Lawson, and Block (1996).

19

Taking Back the Language

In my last column,¹ I claimed that language was important in the ideological battle for the free society. If we allow our “friends” on the statist left to seize the linguistic high ground, we make the battle more difficult for ourselves. We must use words which help us make the case for laissez faire capitalism, not those insisted upon by the other side. Let us now continue this process of “deconstructing” language to these ends with some more examples.

Filthy Rich

This phrase is uttered with an attitude of disgust. The implication is that wealth is always attained illegitimately.

This, of course, is sometimes true, but certainly not always. That is, there are indeed illicit methods of attaining riches, such as through theft, or Murder Inc., or fraud, or in a myriad of other ways which violate the libertarian axiom of nonaggression against nonaggressors, and upon the rights to person and property upon which it is based.

But the usual targets of this loathsome epithet are not crooks or killers; nor are the overwhelming majority of wealthy people thieves.

Rather, the targets are businessmen who have earned vast wealth by enriching the lives of their customers. The presumption, then, is that if a person is well-to-do, he came by his possessions honestly. Instead of denigrating the rich we ought to hold ticker-tape parades in their honor.

And we ought to consider using the counterpart phrase “filthy poor,” not to depict those who through no fault of their own are impoverished, but rather those, the “undeserving poor” of an earlier era, who are able-bodied, but do little to help themselves, and everything they can to pull the rest of us down to their level.

Privileged

Properly used, this term applies to those who have been given special advantages denied to the ordinary person. In olden days, this word would be used, for example, to describe a guild member who could engage in commerce prohibited to those who were not so privileged.

Nowadays, “privileged” would well apply to the beneficiaries of government imposed affirmative action; these people are given contracts, jobs, admission to university, etc., denied to others with identical and even superior qualifications, but with the wrong skin color, gender or sexual proclivities.

But this is not at all the way the word is used in the modern benighted epoch by our leftish pundits, teachers, clergy, and editorialists. Instead, this word is employed to describe the children of the rich.

“This child comes from a wealthy family in Scarsdale,” it is said. “He is privileged.”

But this is nonsense on stilts. As long as the parents of the Scarsdale child earned their money honestly, their children were given no unfair advantage. Using “privileged” to refer only to the children of the affluent is just another way of asserting that wealth is per se exploitative.

This, however, is Marxist claptrap, and ought to be dismissed out of hand. We might as well denigrate as “privileged” all children of loving parents, because these kids have a benefit not enjoyed by the victims of child abuse.

Unearned Income

According to the arbiters of language down at the friendly revenue office, earned income stems from labor. In very sharp contrast, “unearned income” is generated from profits, investment, interest, etc.

This is, presumably, because work by the sweat of the brow is noble, uplifting and in the public good, while risking one’s capital in order to earn a profit by benefiting consumers is the very opposite.

Since when have the Marxists taken over the IRS? If the U.S.S.R. could rid itself of its Marxists, can we not do the same for our very own made-in-the-good-old-U.S.-of-A. Infernal Revenue Service?

Freeman

Recently, the flagship publication of the Foundation for Economic Education changed its name from “Freeman” to “Ideas on Liberty.” This was reportedly done to distinguish this magazine from a militia organization, which called itself “The Freemen” and ran afoul of federal law.²

But the FEE’s Freeman had been publishing for decades. It had long been an honorable periodical, but in this decision it has illustrated exactly what should not be done in the battle of ideas. Surely a better course of action would have been to sue for name infringement.

We must protect our own banners, emblems and heritage, not give them up at the first sign of difficulty. Shall we one day, at this rate, eschew “liberty,” “property,” “free enterprise,” “libertarianism?” We will, if this sort of abnegation becomes a precedent.

Ultra

There are ultra-conservatives, but, amazingly, there are no ultra-liberals. Where have all the ultra-liberals gone? (To be sung to the tune of the popular anti-war song.)

“Ultra” refers to a person with whose ideas the speaker disagrees. That is why Mother Teresa was not ultra-generous, but anyone to the right of George Bush becomes an ultra-conservative. It is time, it is long past time, to begin a search for ultra-liberals under each bed; or, better, to leave off this name calling of ultra, which applies only to one side of the aisle.

Eer

It is much the same with the suffix “eer.” There are “profiteers,” because profits are undoubtedly evil and obnoxious. Ask Fidel, he’ll tell you. But there is no such thing as a “wageer,” even though the salaries of some of our leading athletes and actors have catapulted upward of late. This is because workers are always downtrodden, never greedy, at least according to the fourth estate.

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A Defense of Book Burning

In a recent column “The Comstocks Try for a Comeback on Long Island,”³ Gregory Bresiger took issue with a group of Irishmen who had planned to burn 700 copies of the book Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. This is a story of the author’s childhood, which does not place Irish culture in a good light.

Bresiger has pulled out all the stops in his opposition. He quotes from Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, and even resorts to a quote from Malachy McCourt, McCourt’s brother, concerning this practice in Hitler’s Germany. He implies that book burning is but the first step on a path which leads to people burning, intolerance and the “crushing of ideas.”

One argument against book burning is that of unintended consequences: those who engage in these acts sometimes only succeed in more heavily popularizing the object of their scorn and hatred. But this hardly justifies calling them “hyenas” or “blundering clowns.”

Nor is there any justification for calling out the big guns of tolerance, Erasmus, Spinoza, John Stuart Mill and John Milton. For the key, here, ignored by Bresiger, is the distinction between public and private book burning.

With regard to the former, I am in total and enthusiastic support of Bresiger. The government simply has no business burning books, or doing much of anything, for that matter.

However, private book burning, of the sort engaged in by the Irish opponents of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes is entirely a different matter. Burning one’s own books is part and parcel of private property rights. In opposing private book burning, leaping calumny on the heads of those who engage in this activity, Bresiger is treading on the edge of private property rights violations.

If I own a book, I have a right to burn it. Period. While Bresiger never comes out and states that book burning ought to be illegal, this is strongly suggested by his linkage of this practice to Hitler, hyenas, and people burning.

I wonder what is his view of flag burning? Here, as in book burning, the libertarian position ought to be clear: people have a right to burn or otherwise destroy any of their own private property. Any law prohibiting from doing just that is an illicit one.

Printed with kind permission of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. This article was initially posted as “Daily Article” on http://www.mises.org website.

¹ “Watch Your Language.”

² For the full story on this group, see “Who Are the Freemen?” (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/tucker2.html).

³http://www.lewrockwell.com/bresiger/bresiger8.html

20

Word Watch

Stakeholder

A new word has crept into our lexicon, courtesy of our friends on the left. It is “stakeholder” and it is the entering wedge of yet another attack on private property rights.

In the good old days, a firm had contractual obligations to its suppliers, to its employees, and to its customers. The only obligation it had to its neighbors was the one we all have to each other: to refrain from threatening or engaging in initiatory violence against them and their rightfully owned property.

But all of this is now out of date. Thanks to the new dispensation, all of these people, and a whole host of others as well, must now be invited into the boardroom, there to join with the nominal owners of the firm in setting policy. And, to add insult to injury, these “stakeholders” may even sometimes get to outvote the owners of shares of stock.

How does this work? Under the stakeholder theory, anyone with any connection at all to the business, no matter how tenuous, now has a quasi-ownership right over the firm’s property.

Thus, it is no longer a matter of pleasing customers, or seeing them take their business to competitors and suffering as a result. Now, customers have the right to actually set policy. Employees, in this philosophy, are not merely owed an honest paycheck for an honest day’s work; in addition, they have the right to put their two cents in to the decision-making process. And ditto for neighbors, politicians, passersby and other busybodies.

One problem with this attempt to foist “economic democracy” on an unsuspecting public is to determine the number of votes owned by each of these constituencies. There seems to be no obvious answer to this question apart from “one man one vote.” But if any Tom, Dick or Harry can get a vote without actually investing in a company, why would anyone in his right mind set up a corporation?

More basically, the problem with this scheme is that it amounts to theft. How else can you categorize a plan which forces the owner of property to share its control with others, no matter who they are, who did not share in the creation of the business? If “stakeholders” want to have a say in how a firm is run, let them invest in it. If they do, they are no longer stakeholders, but rather investors. Another difficulty is that “stakeholding” seems to be a one-way street.

All the nosey passersby seem to get a property right in the company, but the owners of the firm, for some strange reason known only to our friends on the left, do not obtain a similar right to their property (this is on the assumption that they have any). But logical consistency is only the “hobgobblin of little minds,” so perhaps it is reasonable that stakeholding should not be a two-way street. Why ruin a perfect concept?

Getting something for nothing

According to a libertarian who ought to know better, “one of the basest human motives [is] the desire to get something for nothing.”¹

Now, there is, of course, a sense in which this is totally unobjectionable. Theft, for example, is a way to “get something for nothing,” and is the paradigm case of an illegitimate act from the libertarian perspective.

However, there are other possible scenarios in which depictions of this phrase are not at all incompatible with the free-market philosophy. To condemn the attempt to get something for nothing is thus to over-generalize; it is to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Charity is one case in point. The recipient of voluntary welfare does nothing improper, whatsoever. A person may be down on his luck, or simply forgot his wallet, or was the victim of a mugging. He asks a passerby for a buck for carfare, or for a cup of coffee, or for some change with which to make a phone call, and receives it. He thereby got “something for nothing,” but certainly offends no law which should remain on the books.

When I first met Murray Rothbard as a young man, he allowed me to bask in his presence. He would invite me to his home, he and his wife Joey would feed me, I was allowed to listen to and even partake in the conversation of this great man. Certainly, I gave him nothing, and he gave me plenty. I was far from the only aspiring young libertarian with half-baked ideas who Murray took under his wing.

In a very real sense, I and all these others “got something for nothing.” True, it is possible to argue that the ordinary giver to charity, and Murray Rothbard, the Mother Teresa of libertarianism, didn’t get nothing from the recipients of their donations. Rather, they got some sort of satisfaction from the doing of a good deed.

However, to resort to this line of argument is to acquiesce in the notion not that getting something for nothing is “a base human motive,” but that it is impossible. In this view, even the victim of a crime gets “something:” e.g., the satisfaction that the robber took no more than he did, or refrained from murdering him.

Or take another case: I am holding a $100 bill in my hand, and the wind takes it off, to who knows where. Surely, I gain nothing from this occurrence; but if it floats into someone else’s possession, he gains something for nothing. To deny this possibility is to engage in fallacious tautological reasoning. It is not only possible to get something for nothing, this need not be a base human motivation at all.

The critics of obtaining something for nothing also overlook the concept of consumer and producer surplus. The grocer has thousands of oranges on hand. If he does not sell them soon, they will rot, and then it would cost him money (in addition to the purchase price) to dispose of them. For him, these oranges are not only nothing (zero value) they are an actual burden (negative value).

I have just finished running a marathon race, and those oranges look like liquid gold to me. So the grocer sells a few of them to me. He gets something for nothing (actually, for minus values). Although I pay a few pennies for each, so great is my thirst I would have been willing to pay many dollars for these oranges had I been asked to do so. The difference to me between what I would have been willing to pay (the greater value) and what I actually did pay (the lesser value) is my consumer surplus. No one else can know this amount, but for me it is, in effect, found money.

Or, in other words, I just got something for nothing in terms of consumer surplus as did the grocer in terms of producer or seller surplus. This is part and parcel of the “magic of the marketplace,” and should not be denigrated.

Free Rider

A concept seen by mainstream economists with fear, loathing and disgust is that of the “free rider.” Anyone who gets a value for which he does not pay (another version of “getting something for nothing”) is relegated to the depths in neoclassical economics. The free rider is evidence, for them, of economic inefficiency, a so-called “market failure” and charged with committing the sin of an “external economy.”

The typical example of this horror is when a person benefits from the fact that his neighbor washes his car, or trims his lawn, or keeps his house in good repair. These actions tend to maintain or upgrade the real estate values of the first homeowner’s property, and presumably increase his enjoyment of his holdings (e.g., the view improves).

Why is this so bad? For one of two reasons. We can become enraged at the free rider because, horrors, he is getting something for nothing. Alternatively, we can view him with disdain because the creator of the free ride, the good neighbor, is not doing enough to beautify his own premises, and is thus “cheating” the free rider out of even greater benefits.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, seems to be the motto of the neoclassical economist. Whether blaming the recipient of the positive externality for being an ingrate, or the donor for not doing enough for the former, one thing is clear: government must step in, for without the tender loving care of the state, this neighborhood will surely go to the dogs.

What nonsense. As Murray Rothbard (1997, p. 178) has stated in one of the most insightful comments in all of economics,

A and B often benefit, it is held, if they can force C into doing something... any argument proclaiming the right and goodness of, say, three neighbors, who yearn to form a string quartet, forcing a forth neighbor at bayonet point to learn and play the viola, is hardly deserving of sober comment.

If people are nice to one another, if they smile at each other, well and good. If we appreciate what Einstein and Mozart have given us, if we are “free riders” on them, again well and good. We are all the beneficiaries of those who came before us. This is part and parcel of civilized living, and is no cause for alarm.

Printed with kind permission of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. This article was initially posted as “Daily Article” on http://www.mises.org website.

¹ B. Bradford, Liberty Magazine, May (2000), p. 7.

21

Continuing to Watch Our Language

In past columns on Watching Your Language,¹ I made the point that it is important for us who espouse the freedom philosophy to be aware of the importance of language. If we get pushed into the linguistic corner our intellectual enemies have prepared for us, it is even more difficult to make the case in favor of laissez faire capitalism. In these previous attempts to wrestle with this challenge, I tried to set the record straight with regard to the following words and phrases: Ms., developing countries, rent-seeking, social justice, tax subsidies, property rights, filthy rich, privileged, unearned income, freeman, ultra, profiteer, book burning, stakeholder, getting something for nothing, free rider, swamps and prejudice.

It is now time to add a few new terms to this list. They are as follows: opportunism, red states-blue states, liberal and libertarian. Let us consider them in turn.

Opportunism

In ordinary language, “opportunism,” or “opportunistic,” are pretty neutral words. Even, possibly, slightly positive, in that they indicate that someone is taking initiative, availing himself of opportunities, etc. (In medicine, the word applies to disease-carrying agents which take advantage of opportunities to spread. However, this is a bit outside our realm of interest; in any case, no one blames germs, so there is hardly a negative connotation to the word.²)

In mainstream economics, for example, the American Economic Review, on the other hand, “opportunistic” is now being used as a synonym for cheating or shirking. Here, is an example, of this phenomenon:

Economic models of incentives in employment relationships are based on a specific theory of motivation: employees are “rational cheaters,” who anticipate the consequences of their actions and shirk when the marginal benefits exceed costs. We investigate the “rational cheater model” by observing how experimentally-induced variation in monitoring of telephone call center employees influences opportunism. A significant fraction of employees behave as the “rational cheater model” predicts. A substantial proportion of employees, however, do not respond to manipulations in the monitoring rate. This heterogeneity is related to variation in employee assessments of their general treatment by the employer.³

Things have even gotten to a pass where such language has seeped in to mainstream popular publications; for example, see The Economist, 4/2/05, p. 15.

What is wrong with this? What is wrong is that as in the case of “rent-seeking,” a perfectly neutral, or even “good” word is used to carry “bad” baggage. Rent-seeking, as used by economists, the Public Choice School is the main culprit here, is an equivalent of downright theft, through the political process. By tying “rent” to “thievery,” one tars the former with the brush of the latter. One undermines the ancient and honorable practice of collecting rent. True, it cannot be denied, economists who use language in this way do not have in mind landlords charging rent to tenants. Rather, they are thinking of economic rent, the difference, for example, between what a baseball player’s salary as an athlete, and, say, his next best job as a mechanic or bus driver. But that is irrelevant. Why use a perfectly good word like “rent” to depict legal theft?

In like manner, taking advantage of opportunities is the hallmark of the entrepreneur. But if “opportunism” is widely conflated with cheating, then entrepreneurship, and indeed profit seeking, is thereby impugned. But we need all the help we can get for acts such as these. Thus, we should strive mightily not to equate opportunism with cheating or shirking. Why not use the words for this purpose “cheating” or “shirking?” Why pick on poor old opportunity seeking?

Red States-Blue States

As these words are commonly used, blue states refer to those, many of which are located along both coasts of the U.S. (on the East Coast, the ones toward the north), whose occupants voted mainly for the Democratic Party. Red states refer those in the center of the nation (“flyover country” in the words of those occupying both coasts) that voted preponderantly for the Republican Party.

But this is confusing. Every time I hear these phrases mentioned in this manner I have to do a bit of internal mental switching. This is because red is a color I associate most with Communism, and, I can’t help it, I link the Democrats more closely than I do the Republicans with U.S.S.R.-style government ownership of property and control over the economy. Thus, I have to tell myself that even though red applies to the left side of the political spectrum (economically speaking) it still refers to people in states who preferred the Republican Party. Awkward. (Not that the war-monger, tariff and tax-raising George Bush can be considered a free enterpriser; it is just that, gulp, had Kerry won there would not even be the veneer of free enterprise to hide the Bush-style lurch to the left.)

Why have the powers that be decided upon switching colors and political linkages in this way? I don’t know for sure. I can only speculate. My thought is that this is an attempt on their part to sever the connections between political philosophy and hue in the eyes of the public. And why, in turn, should they want to do this? Again, another conjecture; maybe they think that colors are shorthand for views in political economy, and they want to reduce the very limited additional clarity of thought such cues might afford.

In any case, the connection between color and political perspective is an interesting one, even if somewhat confusing. The Italian fascists wore black shirts. But Hitler, the person who perhaps most personifies fascism, was actually a greenie, left-wing environmentalist, anti-smoking nut (remember, the Nazis were the National Socialist Party). Speaking of the modern greens, the anti-market worshippers of Gaia, they are really watermelons: green on the outside, but red on the inside. These people have a strong but unrequited desire to control the lives of other people and their property. For a while, they “successfully” hitched their wagon to the communist, or red movement, but this all came unglued in 1989, at which point they switched their allegiance to the greens. Complicating matters is that the favorite color of the Levellers in seventeenth-century England, according to Murray Rothbard, the first libertarian political movement, was green. Who, then, are the true greens?

Returning to fascism, the Blueshirts were an Irish Fascist movement during the 1930s, led by General Eoin O’Duffy, and Jose Antonio’s Falange were also Blueshirts. So fascism now can claim black and blue, which has a certain appropriateness. On the other hand, there is brown as in brownshirts (we’ll not mention UPS in this regard), another fascist group. Further complicating matters is that the combination of red, white and blue has stood for fascism for quite a long time now.⁴

(I would like to acknowledge help from several friends of mine on linking colors and political movements. They are Tom DiLorenzo, Stephan Kinsella, David Gordon, Lew Rockwell, Jeff Tucker and Ralph Raico.)

Given that communism is red, and that the coastal states are politically pink, at least closer to red than anything else, and that the states in the center of the country who voted for Bush are closer to fascism, and there is historical precedent for categorizing that belief system as blue, then the way these color names are actually bandied about is an inversion of the truth in such matters.

So, what, then, should we do about the 180-degree confusion of the colors red and blue as applied to the various states? Simple; the same thing as in all these other cases of verbal abuse: refuse to go along. I know, I know, it is confusing if everyone else calls Arkansas, for example, a red state and you call it a blue one. But the same holds true with any of these other words: opportunism, Ms., developing countries, rent-seeking, social justice, tax subsidies, property rights, filthy rich, privileged, unearned income, freeman, ultra, profiteer, book burning, stakeholder, getting something for nothing, free rider, swamps and prejudice. If we do not make a statement with words, they will soon enough be taken away from us.

Liberal and Libertarian

Precisely the same thing has long ago occurred with “liberal.” In one epoch, long, long ago, a liberal was one who believed in peace, private property rights, limited government and free markets. That perfectly good word was seized by our friends on the left, and now we must resort to “classical liberal,” or “liberal, European style,” if we wish to distinguish ourselves from the likes of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry or Hillary Clinton. The same thing occurred with “gay,” and I take my hat off to Joe Sobran for having attempted to rescue that particular word. We have got to fight, fight, fight to keep hold of verbiage important to us.

Something of the sort now even seems to be occurring with the word “libertarian.” When the likes of Milton Friedman can publicly call himself a “small L libertarian,”⁵ the end might not be near, but it is ominously approaching. This Nobel Prize-winning economist is not a libertarian, big or small L, it matters not. He favors school vouchers, the continuation of the Fed, the negative income tax, the anti-trust law; he was the father of tax withholding (although to be fair to him, he later on apologized for this), road socialism (he opposes the privatization of streets and highways) and fiat currency (he is derisive toward advocates of the gold standard). It is true he is sound as a bell on things like free trade, rent control, minimum wages, etc., but this scarcely supports a claim to libertarianism.⁶

Of course, in the context of the major talking heads, Friedman is a libertarian. At least, he is probably the most libertarian of any person they have ever had contact with. When they say that even Milton Friedman takes thus and such a position, it pretty much defines one end point of the political spectrum. Anyone even more libertarian than he, forsooth, falls right off the end of the realm of respectability.

What are we to do in the face of such challenges? Well, try to hold on to as much verbal turf as we can. At least, let us be aware of these problems. This is a necessary, albeit hardly sufficient, condition for confronting them.

Printed with kind permission of Mr. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. This article was initially posted on http://www.lewrockwell.com website.

¹ See “Watch Your Language,” “Taking Back the Language,” and “Word Watch.”

² See on this http://www.aegis.com/topics/oi/

³http://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v92y2002i4p850-873.html

⁴ See on this Charlotte Twight, “America’s Emerging Fascist Economy” (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0870003178/lewrockwell).

⁵ Milton Friedman, Wikipedia. http://www.self-gov.org/mfriedman.html

⁶http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard43.html

22

Voluntary Taxes: Abusive Language and Politicians

(with William Barnett)

In his March 20, 2002 letter to the Wall Street Journal “‘Tough-Guy’ Proposals for Indiana’s Budget,” that state’s Governor Frank O’Bannon calls “for increases in two minor, voluntary taxes—on cigarettes and riverboat admissions.”

“Voluntary taxation?” “Voluntary taxation” is an oxymoron if ever there was one; it is similar to “jumbo shrimp,” “an important trifle,” or “a square circle.” “Voluntary taxation” is a downright contradiction in terms, since if there is anything that taxation is not, it is voluntary. The proof is, if you do not pay, your property is forcibly confiscated and/or you go to jail. “Coercive taxation” is a redundancy, because once you comprehend the former word in this phrase, you know the meaning of the latter is a constituent part of that understanding.

This is but one—though a typical one—example of the way politicians abuse the language in attempting to deceive the people about the true nature of their actions.

Does the good governor mean that purchasers of cigarettes/entrants onto riverboats don’t have to pay the relevant tax if they don’t want to? Or does he mean that they don’t have to pay the tax if they don’t buy cigarettes/enter riverboats? It is not likely that he intends the former. If the former, then, of course, all taxes are voluntary; e.g., one could avoid property taxes on residential property or sales taxes on food merely by going homeless or not buying food, respectively. In the latter case, perhaps one could survive by foraging in dumpsters. Similarly, he might mean that income taxes are really voluntary, in that you can choose not to earn an income, in which case you are not subject to the tax. That is, because voluntary choice determines whether or not a tax applies, the levy in question is not really compulsory.

But if this were true, then robbery would no longer be a crime. A robbery victim could simply choose not to own anything. That, surely, would foil any would-be thief. Or, an intended murder victim could be offered the choice of a slow, painful death by torture or administering to himself a dose of a quick, painless poison. This would no longer be murder. Instead, utilizing the “logic” of Governor O’Bannon, it would become a (voluntary) suicide.

C’mon, Governor, give us a break! Using the coercive power of government to relieve people of their hard-earned wealth is bad enough, but debasing the language (no doubt quality education is a top priority for this servant of the people) in the process only adds insult to injury.

Printed with kind permission of Mr. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. This article was initially posted on http://www.lewrockwell.com website. William Barnett II is Chase Distinguished Professor of International Business and Professor of Economics at Loyola University, New Orleans.

23

Language, Once Again: Civil War, Inclusive Language, Economic Warfare, National Wealth

Civil War

What took place in 1861 in the U.S. was not a “civil war.” There were not two contending armies, each one trying to rule the other. Rather, this was a war over secession.

For an example of a true civil war we might consider the Spanish Civil War of 1936. There, two groups fought each other, and each wished to rule over the entire country. On the one side were the fascists, under Franco; on the other side were the communists.

Why call what happened in the mid-nineteenth century in the U.S. a “Civil War?” A true civil war, as we all know, is between two contending parties, each of whom wants to rule the other, or, govern the entire society, composed of both elements.

In the war of 1861, this applies, full well, to the North. But the South did not want to rule the North, nor the entire country composed of both. It only wanted to separate from the North, or secede from the union. In my view, it takes “two to tango.” You can’t have a civil war if only one side wants to rule the other.

Here are some more accurate names for that tragic event:

A. Neutral

1. War of 1861

2. War between the North and the South

3. War between the states

B. Slightly pejorative

4. War of Southern Secession

5. War for Southern Independence

C. Very pejorative

6. War of Northern Aggression

7. Lincoln’s War

8. War to Prevent Southern Independence

9. Second American War for Independence

10. The Third American War for Independence

11. The Rape of the South by the North

D. Radical

12. First War of Southern Secession

The first category, A. Neutral, includes three entries, all of which are nondebatable. That is, they are highly descriptive, and, presumably, will not offend anyone. They are: War of 1861, War between the North and the South, and War between the states. No one could rationally object to War of 1861, or, perhaps, War of 1861–1865. After all, those were the undisputed years of the fighting. Nor can the geographical descriptions, war between the North and the South or between the states, be rejected. They are, it cannot be denied, highly accurate, and not under contention.

The second category, B, is slightly pejorative in that it explicitly blames the North for the conflagration. Both War of Southern Secession and War for Southern Independence indicate that it was the North that attempted to force an unwilling South into something of which it no longer wanted to be part. Were the North and the South a married couple, we might say that the South wanted a divorce, and the North was unwilling to grant one to it. We have a phrase that describes such an event between a man and a woman: marital rape.

But what about slavery, it might be objected? If there is any true rape going on in this situation, it was not perpetrated by the North against the South. Rather, both literally and figuratively, it far better describes what the South was doing to the slaves.

Not so, not so. For there was slavery in the North as well! It gives the North way too much credit to put matters in this way. As both parts of the country were guilty of enslaving innocent people,¹ this horrific crime cannot be used to distinguish the parties. Slavery, as it were, gets cancelled out of the equation, and we are left with one group of people who no longer wanted to politically associate with another group of people, and yet were forced to do just that, against their will.

As well, there were several New England states that seriously discussed secession in the 1820s, as a protest against slavery, not in its support, and there were no hues and cries from “progressives” that this would have been illegitimate.²

In category C, we arrive at very pejorative appellations that quite properly indicate the guilt of the North and innocence of the South in no uncertain terms. The War of Northern Aggression, Lincoln’s War,³ the War to Prevent Southern Independence, the Second American War for Independence, and the Third American War for Independence⁴ all lay the blame squarely on the guilty party. The rape of the South by the North does this in spades.

The South fought a valiant battle against the North.⁵ Unfortunately, the latter vastly outnumbered them, both in terms of men and material.

With category D, we arrive at the most radical of all nomenclature: the First War of Southern Secession. The implication is that what occurred in 1861 will once again take place, only this time the results will be very different. A group that would likely welcome this eventuality is the League of the South (http://www.dixienet.org/). More power to them.

Inclusive Language

When I was a young lad, the people who caught fish were always called “fishermen.” Nowadays, those who perform this task are referred to as “fishers.” Why the sudden, ok, not so sudden, change? This obviously stems from the genus political correctness, species, feminism. “Fisher” is inclusive of males and females, while “fisherman,” seemingly, excludes the latter. A similar analysis applies to “actor” and “actress,” to “firefighter” and “fireman.” The former two of each of these pairs, “actress” and “fireman,” although in use for eons, have now been banished down the memory hole. There used to be “chairmen”; now, there are only “chairs” in polite society. Why? This can only be to satisfy the perverse desires of feminists. In the pre-feminized language, the male nomenclature typically included both genders. That is, although women rarely were firemen or fishermen, they most certainly could be, insofar as the language was concerned.⁶

And why do feminists favor such language? Much like the natives of cargo cult fame,⁷ they feel that if they can but change something superficial, then real results are sure to follow. That is, males and females will be treated equally, if inclusive language is but utilized by all. Just as cargo cult members do not realize there are good and sufficient reasons why airplane delivery of goods is strictly limited to legitimate airports, feminists do not appreciate there are compelling economic and biological reasons why females, on average, earn less money than do males.⁸ A similar phenomenon seems to be operating with regard to blacks in television shows and movies. They are typically portrayed as doctors, lawyers, professors, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, in numbers far in excess of their actual representation in these professions. This is yet another example of the triumph of hope over reality.⁹

Further, these innovations really bollix up the language.¹⁰ Consider the following confusions between the singular and the plural:

“‘If you love someone, set them free’ (Sting); ‘It’s enough to drive anyone out of their senses’ (George Bernard Shaw); ‘I shouldn’t like to punish anyone, even if they’d done me wrong’ (George Eliot).”¹¹

One way out of this infelicity is to use the plural instead of the singular. “For instance, instead of ‘As he advances in his program, the medical student has increasing opportunities for clinical work,’ try ‘As they advance in their program, medical students have increasing opportunities for clinical work.’”¹² Or, “Each professor decides their own reading lists.”¹³ But, who wants to be confined to the straightjacket of use of the plural forever. What did the singular ever do to deserve such a fate?

Another objection is based on logic. Inclusive language replaces every use of “man” it can get its hands on, and replaces it with “human.” For example, “man” becomes “human,” “mankind” gets converted to “humankind,” “straw man” morphs into “straw person,” etc. Often “person” is substituted. For example, “He went to the store” becomes “A person went to the store.”

The problem, here, is with the last part of “human” and “person,” namely, “man” and “son.” If the feminists were logically consistent, they would first insist on “huwoman,” instead of human.” But this too presents difficulties as “woman” ends in the dread “man.” Maybe “hudaughter” should be used instead of “human” and “perdaughter” in place of person.

Economic Warfare

Pundits are accustomed to utilizing the language of war and strife to depict economic relationships. This is confusing, irrational and misleading. For the dismal science addresses mutual benefit, or positive sum games. All participants gain whenever a trade, a purchase, sale, rental agreement, job, etc., gets consummated; necessarily so in the ex ante sense, and in the overwhelming majority of cases ex post.

For example, if I purchase a newspaper for $1, it is an apodictic undeniable truth that at that moment, I ranked the periodical more highly than the money I had to pay for it. Why else, for goodness sakes, would I have been willing to engage in this commercial transaction was this not so? I anticipated that I would benefit from this trade. Even in the ex post sense, from the vantage points of afterward, in virtually all such cases I and everyone else in this position gains. Rare is the case where I, or anyone else for that matter, regrets the purchase of a paper on the ground that there was no good news in it after all, and that was what the buyer was seeking and expecting.

Consider in this regard, then, concepts such as “price war,” or “hostile takeover.” Here, it would appear, there is not mutual benefit occurring in the market, but rather an antagonistic relationship. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Take the latter first. This charge is fueled by the spectre of corporate raiders who swoop down on a helpless firm, engage in a “hostile takeover,” sell off its assets, and fire all the employees. There are numerous fallacies here. First of all, unemployment is created by artificially boosting wages above workers’ productivity. If the minimum wage law, or a union, insists that an employee be paid $10 per hour, but he is only worth $7 in terms of productivity, he will be unemployed, period. This has nothing to do with so-called hostile takeovers. Yes, people are fired, but unemployment is no higher in industries that witness such activities than in any other.

But do not corporate raiders sometimes dismember firms for their assets? Indeed, they do. However, they only earn a profit when these selfsame assets are actually worth more in other areas of endeavor than where they were first deployed. This means that if jobs are lost in one corporation, they will be created in others, to the places where the assets are now more productively employed, thus raising wages.

Another socially beneficial effect of the corporate raider concerns salaries of chief executive officers. Many commentators complain that CEO salaries have hit the stratosphere, and constitute an unconscionable exploitation of the workingman. Suppose that the capital value of a firm would have been $100 million if the CEO salary was “moderate,” but, because of a stupendous compensation package, it is now worth only $10 million. Such a firm would be ripe for the pickings of a corporate raider. He would purchase this business for, say, $11 million, fire the parasitical CEO, watch the firm’s value rise to its “proper” $100 million, and pocket a hefty $89 million in profit. The corporate raider is to outrageous CEO salaries what the canary is to coal mine safety; only he does the bird one better: not only does he warn of a problem, he solves it in one fell swoop. Yet, government, in jailing people like Michael Milken, has obliterated this beneficial market mechanism. And now they have the audacity to complain of out-of-control CEO pay.

As for “hostility” there is no such thing between the buyer and seller of stock. The only “hostile” person is the CEO who was ripping off the firm. But when we say that in the market there is only peaceful cooperation, we mean on the part of those who engage in any specific transaction; e.g., the newspaper buyer and seller. Third parties, of course, can always be hostile. A Marxist, for example, might have his nose put out of joint by all commerce. He is “hostile” to all of them. So what?

What of price war? This, too, is a linguistic contortion. When grocers, or filling stations, for example, lower their prices in an attempt to attract customers, they are very far from having a “war” with those who buy from them. Very much the opposite is the case. As far as the relation of these vendors with each other, the supposed participants in this “war,” they are in the same position as the too-high-salaried CEO and the corporate “raider.” They are third parties to all these transactions, and, as such, have no standing in any of them. They cannot reveal or demonstrate (Rothbard 1997) their hostility. That is, when customer A purchases groceries or gasoline from seller a, seller b might not like it, but he is not part of this transaction.

National Wealth

We have often been told that the richest X percent of the people own Y¹⁴ percent of the national wealth. It is usually far more than their proportion of the population, as might be expected in the context of not exactly equal wealth on the part of all people. But this X percent of the population do not own any of the national wealth. They, of course, can claim all of their own wealth, but none of anyone else’s.

Putting matters in terms of national wealth, and then noting that it is unequally distributed, is a recipe for complaints on the part of the poorest elements of the population, and their self-styled spokesmen.

Implicit in this notion is the idea that the best way to attain “equity,” defined, typically, as almost absolute income equality, is to take income or wealth from the rich and simply give it to the poor. One could do so by instituting a highly progressive income or wealth tax.

There are many problems with any such course of action. First, it reduces the incentive of both rich and poor to earn income and be productive. The former will not work as hard, at the margin, if what they produce will be taken from them. But this applies to the latter as well, since they will not be given as much of the wealth of other people if they earn their own.¹⁵ Second, “equity” is not at all the same thing as “equality.” The first term denotes fairness, while the second merely indicates a certain mathematical relationship. But what is so fair about expropriating, at the point of a gun, money from those who have earned it, and giving it to those who have not? Third, a country that engages in such practices to a great degree may well approach “equality,” but it will be only equality of the sort where everyone starves equally.

Fair Trade

What could be fairer than “fair trade?” The superficial answer is that nothing could be. But a more careful analysis of language reveals that there is nothing at all fair about “fair trade,” and that really fair trade is free trade.

Let us begin by defining our terms. “Fair trade,” thanks to the perversion of language, is a system where people are prevented from trading as they wish. Instead, barriers to trade are enacted, in order to counteract environmental and labor standards prevailing in other countries.¹⁶ In other words, if an exporting country in South America or Africa pays wages lower than those deemed appropriate by busybodies and do-gooders in the first world, tariffs and even quotas will be placed in the path of imports emanating from that source. Why it is “fair” to create unemployment in these third world countries by forcing wages above productivity levels is never explained.

Taken to its logical conclusion, and where else are we to take it, “fair” trade is really an attempt to remove any competitive advantage that these nations might have vis a vis those in Europe or North America. If we could impose the same stringent labor and environmental legislation on these countries as now prevails domestically, exports from these poorer areas would no longer be competitive with the product of locals. Ultimately, this would pretty much spell the death knell for any trade between rich and poor global communities.

This would harm all of those in wealthy countries, particularly the less well off there. But the biggest victims would be inhabitants of the poorer sectors of the world. It is no accident that those parts of Africa, in an earlier century, that came into contract with the more advanced West (that is, those on the coast) developed more quickly than those internal to that continent, where traders seldom ventured.¹⁷ Most global trade takes place within the advanced areas, not between them and those suffering from dire poverty. To deprive these parts of the world of the relatively little trade they presently enjoy would be to treat the poor, then, in a particularly vicious way. Is it any accident that those most intent on promoting “fair trade” are the leftists who have infested the labor and left-wing environmental movements in the West? This is far from the only instance where those who pose as the friends of the poor are actually their greatest enemies.

In very sharp contrast, free trade¹⁸ is the last best hope for the poor, of all nations, as well as for promoting worldwide specialization and division of labor, which benefits all trading partners, at least in the ex ante sense.

Printed with kind permission of Mr. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. This article was initially posted on http://www.lewrockwell.com website.

¹ For the argument in favor of legalizing voluntary slavery, an entirely different matter, see Block (1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006).

² For a defense of secession, see Adams (2000); Gordon (1998); Kreptul (2003); McGee (1994); Rothbard (1967).

³ DiLorenzo (2002) makes the case for this appellation.

⁴ Since the War of 1812 was the second. I owe this point to Larry Sechrest.

⁵ See the movie, “Gods and Generals” (http://www.godsandgenerals.com).

⁶ True, there never was any such thing as a “farmerman.” There were always, and ever, only “farmers.” This would appear to be an exception that proves the rule.

⁷ These pre-civilized people believe that if they build runways, out of straw or other handy material, in the middle of the jungle, airplanes will swoop down out of the sky and deliver cargo to them. (See on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult)

⁸ See chapter 12 of the present book for an elaboration of this claim.

⁹ Another explanation for this phenomenon is to try to get the masses of people to become comfortable with, and accustomed to, females and blacks in nontraditional high prestige occupations, as a support for affirmative action policies that elevate their numbers there compared to what they would have been in the absence of such unjust programs. I anxiously await the fictional depiction of old fat Jews such as myself as sports heroes, sexual studs and rap singers.

¹⁰http://www.adoremus.org.

¹¹http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cjacobso/gender.html

¹²Ibid.

¹³http://www.marquette.edu/wac/neutral/NeutralInclusiveLanguage.shtml

¹⁴ Eugene Paczelt suggested this term to me as problematic.

¹⁵ A popular bumper sticker reads: “Work harder. Millions of welfare recipients are counting on you.”

¹⁶http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade

¹⁷ Bauer (1981, 1984); Bauer and Yamey (1957).

¹⁸http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade